


a revelation in the light of day

by iconicponytail



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Core 4 POV, F/M, Medium Burn, Murder, Mystery, Non-Canonical Character Death, Some angst, Strangers to Lovers, and then they start investigating each other, canon-typical mentions of self harm, first they start investigating a murder, investigator!betty, kind of like the actual show does, sheriff!jughead, ten years after the black hood, using parts of canon and throwing others into the dumpster
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2019-12-26 11:31:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 49,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18281735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iconicponytail/pseuds/iconicponytail
Summary: Betty bobs her head side to side, estimating her answer to his question. Jughead grits his teeth to quash how cute he thinks it is.There is a fucking skeleton outside, Jones.Or, Archie digs up a skeleton in Betty’s backyard and now Sheriff Jughead Jones can’t stop thinking about Betty Cooper. After all, she’s a suspect in a murder investigation.





	1. remains

**Author's Note:**

> I am entirely indebted to heartunsettledsoul for the invaluable beta-ing, for suggesting the title, and approx. one million other little details in between.

_no light, no light in your bright blue eyes_

_I never knew daylight could be so violent_

_a revelation in the light of day_

_you can't choose what stays and what fades away_

 

The sun only suggests an orange outline on the horizon as Archie wakes, sliding out of bed gently so as not to wake Veronica. Moving to the window, he scans the treeline, the view as familiar as his wife’s face, as the Pop’s menu he used to pretend to glance at. Once, he thought he could outrun a life in Riverdale—mornings like this remind him that he’s tethered to this house, this home, both when it’s easy and when it’s hard.

 

Archie stumbles downstairs and makes a pot of coffee, pouring it into an old, chipped Andrews Construction mug. It’s the only one left; Veronica broke the other just a month ago while doing the dishes and collapsed into a fit of sobs, _your dad_ just barely intelligible through her gasping breaths. Archie had rushed to her side, brushed away the ceramic shards and held her, combing her silky black hair through his hands and reminding her that they could burn the whole house down and it wouldn’t expunge Fred from their memories. One mug wasn’t the end of the world.

 

Still, Archie drinks from the same Andrews Construction mug most mornings. Today, he can’t focus on the things that usually absorb his worries. Living in an old house with difficult upkeep keeps him preoccupied; cleaning the gutters, repairing the porch railings, investigating leaks and water damage on newly warping walls. No one tells him to sell it because they know better, though they do pester them about the house next door.

 

_Where is the Cooper girl? Why doesn’t she sell that place?_

 

 _After all this time, no one cares about the history anymore. If_ you _fixed it up I’m sure you could turn a profit on it!_

 

_Just don’t want it to become even more of an eyesore, a vacant lot. Depreciating our property values._

 

Sipping his coffee, Archie fixes his gaze on the car in the Cooper’s driveway. The gut-wrenching guilt kicks into overdrive; Archie threw himself into college to recover from the nightmare of senior year, of death after death, funeral after funeral. When he moved back, he spent years doing all but hiring someone to track her down. Now he knows exactly where Betty is and he’s paralyzed at the thought of knocking on the door to find out where she’s been.

 

The Cooper house isn’t in great shape. The red door is weather worn, its paint bubbled up and peeling. Most of the locks have been broken, windows jimmied open by teenagers and true crime fanatics. All the gardens are both dead and overgrown, especially the backyard, which Archie is sure only he and Veronica can actually see—other neighbors would probably complain about the decay and debris that amassed in the plot where Alice Cooper used to grow tomatoes, kale, and her prized sunflowers. Archie can still remember the earful he’d gotten for hitting wiffle balls into that plot with Reggie when they were ten.

 

Before he knows what he’s really planning, Archie sets his coffee down, pulls on a pair of work boots, an old Riverdale High football sweatshirt, and walks out to the shed. He should go back upstairs, wake Veronica gently, tell her about the station wagon in the driveway. It’s the same model as Alice’s, but newer. He can still feel the stickiness of the root beer float he spilled in the backseat when they were seven. Alice never allowed him inside it with food again. Polly had driven them to the movies at the Bijou in that car once she had her license. The last day he saw that car, he and Fred had helped pack everything Betty wanted to take to school. The social worker stood at the end of the driveway, watching Archie make promises to call her every day— promises he didn’t keep.

 

He should ask Veronica what to do, ask her if she’ll stand on the doorstep and knock with him. Instead, he grabs a shovel and a gardening rake and trudges across the recently thawed yard, crossing the property line. There are three hours until Archie’s shift starts and he doesn’t know if Betty Cooper has come back to Riverdale after more than ten years to finally sell her family’s house or if she intends to stay. Either way, clearing the wilds of the backyard garden is something concrete that Archie can do to help. It was something his dad would have done.

 

The yellowed vegetation from years of neglect created a thick tangle of debris to shovel through and the spring rains had been heavy; dirt has coated the dead weeds and rocks have risen to the surface. The wheelbarrow fills once, then twice, and after an hour the garden is passably cleared. Archie goes for the rake and starts to even out the patch. It’s almost planting season. Whether she wants to sell or not, he knows he’s chosen the perfect chore for the time of year. The momentary swell of pride and usefulness is the last thing he feels before the whole world unwinds before his own eyes. A few drags of the rake and he sees it, a thin protrusion of gray-white in the soil.

 

 _Maybe it’s a deer,_ Archie thinks, but he can’t imagine why a deer bone would be buried below years of overgrowth. He avoids the bone and grabs the shovel, digging deeper.

 

The long bone is connected to another. Archie refuses to think _leg._ It’s not until the dome of a skull appears that Archie drops the shovel, feeling the blood drain from his face and arms.  Shaking, but still following protocol as an officer of the law, he dials Sheriff Jones. Then, he runs to wake his sleeping wife.

 

* * *

 

Veronica has a hard time cataloging the sheer volume of surrealisms unfolding. Archie, for once, had been knocked numb and mostly speechless after he managed to relay the key points: there is a skeleton in the Coopers’ garden, and her estranged high school best friend has returned after more than a decade. A shiver runs continuously through her and it’s only slightly because of the cold of the early April dawn.

 

Waiting for the sheriff and the inevitable reunion with Betty, Veronica is hyper-aware of the ways she will not appear the same popular rich girl she once was. Her coat is secondhand J. Crew, thrifted from a consignment store in Greendale. She works the desk at City Hall, daydreaming about whatever plan she and Archie re-write and re-draft every few months. The Veronica that Betty knew was born with a plan that couldn’t fail. That is, until it did.   

 

Archie weaves an arm around her waist and Veronica lets herself fold into his solid shoulder. The sheriff’s cruiser pulls onto the side of the road, marking the midpoint between their house and Betty’s, the property line that her husband, in all his sweet but patently idiotic fashion, had crossed this morning.

 

Veronica picks at the chipped polish on her thumbnail. She knows that if anyone would care less about her lack of designer clothes, it was Betty. If anyone could understand things not panning out like they were supposed to, it was Betty. She lets out a deep breath and a puff of condensation clouds her vision as she exhales again, trying to exhume the tension from her body.

 

Sheriff Jones saunters up the yard, hat under his arm, meeting them halfway to the garden under the oak with the rotting treehouse. Veronica’s stomach turns, thinking about how that treehouse had once epitomized the lifetime bond between Archie and Betty that she couldn’t get all the way inside of, even when she and Archie got together in high school.

 

“Morning, Mrs. Andrews. Officer.”

 

Usually Veronica interjects for Jughead to call her by her first name—after all, they’ve been more than just acquaintances for years—but amid the gravity of the situation, his stubborn bent toward professionalism at work helps.

 

“Forensics are coming in from the county but it might take another hour or two. They hate getting calls out here,” Jughead rolls his eyes. He turns and gestures to the garden pit. “Can you start with why the hell you started digging a hole on the neighbor’s property?”

 

Archie furrows his brow and swallows. “I saw her car in the driveway.”

 

Jughead nods impatiently and Veronica resists the urge to glare at him. He thinks he knows Archie as an employee, as a drinking pal, but he cannot presume to understand the Coopers. Jughead never knew them beyond the headlines splashed across cable news.

 

Even if teenage Jughead may have snapped a photo with the media huddling in front of the house after the arrest, he had never been inside, never baked cookies with Betty on weekend nights. He doesn’t have the nauseating memory of Hal Cooper’s voice knocking on Betty’s door and asking _ladies, could you keep it down?_ Even if Jughead and his Southside friends rode their bikes past Alice Cooper’s memorial service, he wasn’t sitting standing at the burial site, holding Betty from both sides, like Archie and Veronica had.

 

Archie starts to explain, staring past Jughead, his eyes locked on the car. “It’s Betty, Hal Cooper’s youngest daughter. We were best friends, we have baby photos in my house. When the Lodges came to Riverdale, Betty and Ronnie became inseparable, too. Then our senior year…” Archie trails off, but Jughead motions for him to continue, knowing where Archie is about to go. “The Black Hood, _her father,_ was basically stalking her. He made Betty cut out everybody from her life… ” Archie voice strains with the recollection.

 

“It was to protect us,” Veronica continues for him. “She had to make us believe she didn’t care about us so we would stop noticing what was happening to her. So even after it all came out, we had to make up for abandoning her. We tried, as much as emotionally traumatized teenagers could, to be there for her, but then we all went away to college.”

 

“Ronnie and I haven’t seen her in twelve years,” Archie adds. “I didn’t know what to do, or why she came back, but I couldn’t sleep. I thought either she’s here to sell the house finally, or she’s back to stay, and either way I just wanted to make a gesture.” Veronica rubs her husband’s back with encouragement. Idiotic, but well-intentioned. He glances at her and her heart slows, guilty and grateful to have Archie with her on the other side of all of it.

 

Jughead murmurs a few words of condolence, “I didn’t… I’m sorry.” He turns toward the Cooper house and studies it for a moment. “I’m guessing you haven’t gone over there yet?”

 

It was one thing to awkwardly reunite with a long-lost friend. It was another to ring her doorbell with the news of a dead body instead of a pan of enchiladas. As if Betty Cooper needed more ghosts to keep her up at night. Veronica looks at Archie, who goes even paler. He’s not an option. She doesn’t want to send the sheriff; it’s been many years since the Black Hood’s reign of terror, but Betty didn’t need an immediate retraumatization to Riverdale.

 

She steps forward. “No, but I should do it.” Jughead and Archie both stare at her until she realizes that they’re waiting for her to make the move to knock on the red door.

 

Standing on the porch, Veronica understands Archie’s impulse. The house is practically falling apart, and they haven’t done anything to care for it in Betty’s absence. Not that Veronica can imagine herself doing much to aid that project, but she could have encouraged Archie. She could have done some digging around town hall and asked them to trace back Betty’s mortgage payments or the insurance policy. Veronica could have burned it down to draw Betty back. The thought feels insane, but maybe less insane than letting your best friend leave without trying to hunt her down or bring her back.

 

After all, when you’re standing on her porch twelve years later, what are you supposed to say?

 

Veronica presses the doorbell, but she doesn’t hear it echo. She knocks, first with her knuckles, then pounding with the heel of her hand.

 

Betty opens the door, her face transforming from annoyance to surprise when she registers Veronica. They both stand in several beats of silence, but it’s strangely comforting, like a moment of reverence. Betty looks just enough like Veronica’s memories that emotion swells in her throat and just altered and aged enough that she cannot forget the gulf of time between then and now. Betty’s hair hangs long, down from the usual ponytail. She looks a little tired, her face a bit ashen, but still neatly put together in a sweater and business slacks. Veronica is conscious again of her thrifted jacket, her rolled-out-of-bed to attend to a dead body hair.

 

“Veronica,” Betty blurts more loudly than expected.

 

“Hey,” Veronica returns. “It’s so good to see you. You look nice.” She instantly cringes at her word choice.

 

Betty’s jaw stiffens. “Looks can be deceiving. But it’s good to see you, too. How did you know I was here?” Betty glances around the yard for the first time. Her eyes land on the sheriff’s cruiser, confusion flashing across her face.

 

Veronica takes a deep breath. “Oh, right. Well, Archie saw your car. We live next door. Well, still, from your experience.” Betty’s eyes flick to Veronica’s left hand, noting the thin gold band.

 

“Wow, you and Archie. Congratulations,” Betty’s voice is genuine, laced with raw emotion that Veronica’s brain can’t properly read.

 

“Thanks, yeah, we’re really happy. I… wish you could have been there.”

 

Betty gnaws on her cheek for a moment, glancing back over her shoulder and seeming to debate whether to invite Veronica inside. Truthfully, Veronica hadn’t even considered what that would be like. Looking at the shadow under Betty’s eyes, the steel in her expression, she wonders what it felt like for Betty.

 

“Do you want to come in?”

 

Veronica hedges, realizing that as much as she wants to just talk, she needs to cut to the matter at hand. “I’d love to, but I need to—there’s a situation.”

 

Betty’s face goes grave, but she seems steady, as if practiced in receiving grim news.

 

“Archie saw your car and felt too overwhelmed, I think, to come by, so he thought he could do you a favor by digging out the backyard garden. It seems that he found something… someone. A skeleton.” Veronica’s voice trembles a little.

 

Betty stiffens and grips the door frame. “Human?”

 

Veronica notices Betty’s fingers flex in and out of fists. She nods. “There’s a skull.”

 

“The sheriff is here?”

 

“Yes, he wants to meet you.” Betty seems more annoyed than surprised by the information. Veronica thinks about what it must be like to be someone other than the daughter of a modern horror, to anticipate the reactions of others. She wants to explain that Jughead won’t be like that; he’s measured, professional, a little aloof.

 

Betty rakes her hair back into a loose ponytail, suddenly all business. “Can I see it?”

 

 

* * *

 

Jughead, unable to tolerate Archie’s skittish pacing, sends him inside to make more coffee. For the first time in ages, Jughead doesn’t even feel like he needs the caffeine. It just seemed like the best move to get Archie out of the way while he examines the garden.

 

Jughead would never admit it to Archie or Veronica, but the moment he’d answered Archie’s call about a body on the Elm Street Murder House property, a twisted thrill far more powerful than caffeine had charged through him like a current. There was no logical reason to be excited; it was all probably a coincidence. They body could long predate the Black Hood, Harold Cooper. On the other hand, if it fit the timeline, media attention would rain down on Riverdale again, and Jughead did not look forward to that, either.

 

He crouches around the pit, the flashes of bone evident in the dark, thick soil. Archie had uprooted far too much overgrowth for the burial to have been recent. The house had been empty for twelve years, give or take a few months. Forensics would be able to date the approximate decomposition rate, but depending on the timeline, the details could be hazy. Jughead’s pulse raced with speculation.

 

A soft intake of breath behind him snaps his head upward. The girl from his teenage collection of newspaper clippings stares back at him, though older and more potently beautiful than the grainy images from his makeshift case files. Rising to his feet, he extends a hand, willing his voice to stay even. He’s been told he’s good with victims: solid, neutral, attentive. All the more important with someone like Elizabeth Cooper.

 

“Ms. Cooper, I’m Sheriff Jones. Sorry for all the disturbance so early in the morning.”

 

She takes his hand, shaking firmly and without breaking eye contact. He wonders if her father taught her that. Her eyes are an ethereal green. He holds on a second too long.

 

“Sheriff.” Her gaze skirts to his badge, perhaps noting the ‘F.’ He’d sent the badge back to the state twice; first for using ‘Forsythe’ and then misunderstanding his preference for initials to be ‘F.P.’

 

“I’m afraid we don’t have any answers yet. Waiting on a forensics team. A lot still to determine,” he reassures, feeling guilty for his initial excitement. Her expression is remarkably neutral, if not calm. Still, seeing her face reminds him just how much she’s already lived through.

 

“Right,” she starts in reply. Veronica is ten feet behind them, keeping her distance from the garden pit. “Victim identification, cause of death, decomposition to approximate date of burial.”

 

Jughead furrows his brow and turns to her, mouth open with the question of how she knows all this, but stops himself. He’s letting himself get ahead of protocol. He needs to establish her timeline, meet the forensic team, get back to the station and file a new case.

 

“Ms. Cooper, would you mind answering a few questions inside? As long as we’re waiting?”

 

She swallows. “My house isn’t exactly… hospitable right now.”

 

Jughead notices the circles under her eyes and a shiver runs down his spine at the thought of her spending the night in there. He’s been inside a handful of times over the last few years; kids sneaking into the Murder House on Halloween night, dared by their friends to get into the Cooper basement. High school kids would break in for a place to drink or smoke. The worst were the horror tourists, the middle aged spiritualists and ghost hunters—they went a lot less peaceably. “Of course. Archie is making coffee. I understand you know the Andrews.”

 

She looks over at Veronica and says, so softly that maybe only he hears, “Once upon a time.”

 

 

 

Archie sees Betty Cooper walk through the front door and launches himself at them, wrapping her in a hug so tight that she can’t extract her arms in order to return it. Jughead takes another step away, trying to read the shock on Betty Cooper’s face. A small smile forms after a moment, birthing a thousand questions for Jughead.

 

Archie and Veronica rarely brought up the Coopers, or Betty specifically, in the five or so years that they’ve known each other. He had assumed it was discomfort, not wanting to be associated with something so gruesome. After the events of the morning, he reads their past reactions as something more akin to regret.

 

Even though he didn’t know any of them as kids—Southside High and Riverdale High kids tended to keep to their own haunts, plus Jughead was relegated to summers in Toledo with his mom—Jughead considers for the first time that he might be too close to this.

 

Archie releases Betty and steps back, sheepishness plain in the duck of his head. “Sorry, I’m just… I’m really sorry, Betty. About all this. And more.”

 

Betty looks to Veronica and Archie softly. Jughead notices how she has moved back and forth between guarded and tender. Inexplicably, it triggers something in him, and he finds he covets her gentle regard.

 

“I’m sorry I missed your wedding. I—I also heard about your dad, Arch. I’m sorry I didn’t reach out.”

 

Snapping himself out of his emotional voyeurism, Jughead clears his throat, reminding them of the matter at hand and that their context might not best for traversing the unclear path of estrangement. He needs to get Betty Cooper alone, focus his questions, keep things official.

 

Veronica takes the hint. “Sheriff Jones, why don’t you set up in the dining room?”

 

Betty balks, her guard re-establishing. “Set up? Do you need to record a statement?”

 

Jughead shakes his head, again wondering how many cop shows or mystery novels Betty Cooper has consumed. “Just some preliminary questions. Like I said, we still don’t know much of anything.”

 

They sit down across the dining table from one another—a table they’ve both sat at before, he realizes, though during very different seasons. He’s thinking about the photos of young Veronica and Betty in cheerleading uniforms, the photos from Archie and Veronica’s high school graduation where Betty is now notably absent. At the same time they were losing classmates, teachers, he was speculating from a distance, mapping the murders that happened far outside his Southside perimeters.

 

For the second time, he sizes her up, the lone member of the Cooper clan. He’s not sure what he imagined, but her rod-straight posture and steely gaze remind him that she’s had to be guarded, protective. One can’t survive death, disappearance, a serial killer and stalker as a demure and fragile person—but somehow he’d still anticipated exactly that. He has ground to regain, trust to earn.

 

“This must to be very strange and unwelcome. I don’t want to press you, Ms. Cooper. I see my job as making you bear as little of the stress of this investigation as possible.” He pulls out his medium steno pad and a ballpoint pen from Bulldog Tavern.

 

“You can just call me Betty.” She seems to soften, her eyes meeting his and then losing them. Jughead relaxes a fraction, pleased that he’s made her a little more comfortable.

 

“Betty,” Jughead tries, voice almost inappropriately tender. He gulps and course corrects. “When did you arrive in Riverdale?”

 

“Last night, around eleven.” She opens her mouth as if to elaborate, but seems to stop herself. “To be clear, this is just informational, correct?”

 

Again, he blames the apparent obsession with criminal investigation television. “I’ll let you know if we need to take an official statement. I might make you repeat some things if that’s the case, but just don’t worry about that yet.”

 

Betty presses her lips together—there is certainly something she decides not to tell him. Then she pulls the tie from her hair, letting it fall back over her shoulders and Jughead is distracted again, squishing the curiosity about what it would feel like to comb his hand through the sheet of blonde.

 

“I understand this is the first time you have been back to Riverdale in over ten years?”

 

Betty keeps her tone matter-of-fact, “Yes. I left in May, twelve years ago, after my mother’s burial. I came back to the county once, to testify in my father’s trial.”

 

Jughead makes a mental note to revisit the court files. It might not be pertinent, but he ought to corroborate, just in case. “What brought you back?”

 

What he wants to know, really, is where she went. What she’s been doing. What do you do when your whole family dissolves around you? How do you recover from something like that? Jughead can’t boast too much about his own family ties, but he still has Jellybean. His parents, however dysfunctional, physically and emotionally distant were still alive.

 

Betty pauses for a long beat. “I received notice to appear in court, to establish residency in that house. Someone in Riverdale is fed up with an empty murder house, I suppose. Anyway, aren’t you going to ask about my father?”

 

Jughead ignores the deflection and chews on her answer, not sure if he believes her. He can check to validate the existence of a civil case, surely. “You want to establish residency?”

 

Betty cocks an eyebrow. “Why, did _you_ file the case? Sick of dealing with the break ins?”

 

“No, no,” he backpedals. “I’m sorry, Ms. Cooper. Betty.” He holds back a deep sigh. “The residency piece is important just so that when we get a time of death—”

 

“You can eliminate me as a suspect.”

 

Jughead opens his mouth and shuts it again.

 

Betty relaxes her posture and seems to smother a look of amusement. “Sorry. I know you’re just doing your job.”

 

Jughead feels himself flushing and runs a hand through his hair to clear his head. He grapples for another in-road, reminding himself that this isn’t actually an interview. “No, you’re right. I guess I have to ask—when was the last time you remember anyone attending to the garden?”

 

A gleam enters Betty’s eye; she prefers to entertain this speculative line of questioning. “It was my mom’s garden, so before… well, I’m assuming you know about that. Anyway, she had these enormous sunflowers, hiding the vegetables behind because she was paranoid about neighbors helping themselves.”

 

“Could you draw me a diagram?” He pushes the steno pad towards her.

 

Betty complies, examining the name on the pen for a moment. _Right._ She had no idea what Riverdale looked like, now. “She would weed most everything out in the fall and replant in the spring. So it’s very possible, hypothetically, for the garden to have been _tampered with_ during those months.”

 

Jughead pulls the notepad back. “Which months, exactly?”

 

Betty bobs her head side to side, estimating. Jughead grits his teeth to quash how cute he thinks it is. _There is a fucking skeleton outside, Jones._ “We would can the tomato sauce in late September, so probably October through March.”

 

Jughead scribbles that down. “Thank you, Betty. For now, I think this is enough. If we need more, I’ll be in contact.”

 

They’re both standing up, readjusting the dining chairs when Betty clears her throat and speaks softly. “How well do you know Veronica and Archie?”

 

He shrugs, “I’m Archie’s boss, technically. But we’re a small office and he’s a good guy.”

 

“And Veronica?” She presses.

 

Jughead can’t imagine why Betty is asking—she left before Hiram Lodge left Riverdale in shambles. She wouldn’t know that the Lodges and and his father had been both entwined and opposed throughout various schemes, that he and Veronica both lost hope in their parents at the same time.

 

“I don’t know if you’ve been keeping tabs on Riverdale, but Veronica lost everyone except Archie. We all have more in common than you’d think.”

 

Betty stares past him and then back again. “Why did you want to be sheriff of Riverdale?”

 

Jughead isn’t sure how the roles of _his_ interview got switched on him, but Betty’s brow is creased so earnestly. Trust, in his experience, is not won quickly. Still, he wants Betty Cooper’s trust, for reasons of making his job easier. And maybe something more, something he can’t explain. “A lot of people have tried to destroy this town.”

 

Both of their fathers included. But Jughead loves his damn hat, the badge, the weight of duty. The town of Riverdale is a metaphorical vehicle for family at this point, the amalgamation of the good and bad that made him who he is. The place, the thing he’s loyal to. “I wanted to protect it, keep it safe for _everyone._ Hope that maybe, someday, it can be a place people don’t have to run away from.”

 

Betty reaches across the table, hand face up, so he meets her for a handshake. Instead, she covers his hand with her other one and just holds it while her eyes meet his. “Thank you, Sheriff Jones.”

 

She releases his hand and he tucks it into his coat pocket, like he’s trying to save the sensation. With is other hand, he puts his hat back on and tips the brim toward her. “I’ll be in touch, Betty.”

 

The forensics team will arrive any minute, but Jughead needs the drive back to the station to think. He’ll grab the Black Hood case files to refresh. He’ll also submit a government background check request on Elizabeth Cooper, for good measure.

 

Or maybe just because he’s curious.

 

* * *

 

Betty glances at the clock in Archie and Veronica’s kitchen. 6:45 AM. She hasn’t slept in over 30 hours. Even after driving from Virginia, Betty couldn’t sleep in that house.

 

Passing the “The Town with Pep!” she considered pushing through, stopping in Greendale and getting a motel room, but that seemed like a defeat. This was the culmination of all the years of therapy, of grief, of finding hope and usefulness in the world. If it meant enough for her to leave the rest of her life behind to hold onto this house, she didn’t need an exit strategy.

 

There was a ring of six different keys—the number of times she had new locks installed over the years. Three failed before the fourth finally turned. Crossing the threshold, the dirt, the bugs, the mice were all to be expected. She flicked a light switch and then laughed to herself, unsure why she’d expected it to turn on. The water didn’t run, the gas didn’t light. She started making a list of tasks in her head; it was a good distraction tactic.

 

The most unsettling thing was that most everything looked frozen under layers of dust. No one had stolen the entryway furniture, the photo frames that hadn’t been packed up by Mary or Fred Andrews in the aftermath. The living room was an exception. The crime scene cleaners had scrubbed and stripped it bare, hauled most of the furniture away. Strangely, Betty found she could breathe in the living room, like the worst moments of her life were sanitized and incinerated with everything else.

 

She knew there was nothing in her bedroom, but it seemed like the next natural place to go. Betty had packed up her clothes, shoes, books, and necessities and stacked them into the station wagon. She spent the summer in a post-traumatic stress facility, then in the fall, she drove herself to college, unpacked alone, watching students around her explore campus with their parents. When her roommates’ parents asked about her family, Betty lied. They had to get back to work—couldn’t stick around.

 

The pink walls were covered in notes, cards, letters, all addressed to her. Betty. Elizabeth. The Cooper Daughter. Notes she was never actually supposed to receive. The papers covered the walls from floor to ceiling. Hand drawn pictures of her in a Riverdale cheerleading uniform. The news cycles had used that photo as human interest fodder. Humanization material.

 

Betty had run to the bathroom and thrown up in the sink, then regretted it, realizing she couldn’t wash it down the drain. _Call plumber._   _Call wall-strippers. Call someone willing to burn this house to the ground._ She spent the whole night scouring the living room, researching cleaning services, and telling herself that if she could make it one night, she could do anything.

 

If nothing else, the events of the morning were another way to dissociate from the reason she had come back in the first place. Betty had reclaimed her life by sinking her teeth into morbid curiosities that weren’t her own.

 

Now, sitting in the Andrews kitchen, she wonders if she’ll be allowed to call the cleaners, or if fumigating, scrubbing, and repainting the house will seem suspicious now that there are human remains in the backyard. Betty considers the fact that even searching for those services could, in the hands of the right prosecutor, be made to look suspicious. Then again, she has a good feeling about Sheriff Jones—she had probably been excessively difficult, as someone familiar with investigation proceedings, but he’d handled it with grace. Answered her personal questions with bright blue eyed honesty. Plus, the skull outside had nothing on Jones’ cheekbones.

 

Veronica walks in, breaking Betty’s train of thought. “Archie had to go meet the forensics team, answer some questions. Are you hungry? Can I make you anything?” she offers.

 

The thought of Veronica Lodge cooking makes Betty want to laugh, but she holds it in. The woman before her, Veronica Andrews, only vaguely resembles her high school best friend. The same face but without makeup, the same shiny black hair but longer and not styled immediately after waking. Wearing sweatpants and a Columbia Law tank top instead of silk pajamas. Still, Betty warms to her more because of it. Maybe this Veronica could be trusted to fry an egg.

 

“I’m actually starving, but I don’t want to put you out. Maybe…” Betty pauses, grappling for a breath of confidence. “We could go to Pop’s or something?”

 

Veronica’s face crumples. “Betty… Pop’s doesn’t exist anymore. Riverdale is not like you left it.”

 

The statement seems obvious, inherent, but Betty still feels like someone’s wedged a sliver of ice through her heart. “Pop’s is gone?”

 

“Well, it’s still there. But it’s not Pop’s.”

 

Betty sinks onto one of the stools at the island. She’d expected things to have changed in Riverdale, even hoped for it, but this was different. “What happened?”

 

Veronica sits down in the stool beside her. “It happened around when I moved back here, five years ago. I had just finished law school, I was supposed to take the Bar exam. But then my parents were arrested.”

 

Betty had heard about it a little at work; she had set alerts for Riverdale and the surrounding area. “The FBI, right?”

 

Veronica nods. “My dad has over thirty years in prison, my mom only got fifteen for giving the feds all of his most incriminating evidence, naming accomplices, all that. Our money was gone, everything taken away. I had my trust fund, but after all the legal expenses and realizing I had to pay off law school, I didn’t have much left.”

 

“Hiram owned Pop’s,” Betty concludes.

 

“Exactly. Suddenly, half the town was for sale. The Mantles bought Pop’s and the White Wyrm. Pop’s is an ice cream shop; the Wyrm is the Bulldog Tavern. A lot of stuff is empty, especially on the Southside. A lot of families left. My father bled them dry and they didn’t have the resources to buy their lives back.”

 

Betty thinks of Sheriff Jones’ pen, the unfamiliar name and branding on the side. Even more, she remembers his words, how he wanted to protect Riverdale and his sympathies for Veronica. She wants to ask about him but she’s not ready to replay their conversation and have Veronica probe deeper.

 

“So, you’re a lawyer?” Betty steers the conversation further towards Veronica.

 

Veronica shakes her head slowly. “I came back here to pick up the pieces when my parents were arrested. I helped at City Hall with the interim mayoral appointment. I missed my Bar exam test date, which shouldn’t have mattered, but my concerns were miles away from that. Then… I saw Archie again.” Everything about Veronica softens when she says Archie’s name, and both women turn to look outside to the red-haired man. Betty’s heart aches at the emotion in Veronica’s voice. After all the destruction, the plans gone wrong, the love at the end meant that none of it mattered. That maybe some of it had been worth it.

 

“Tell me everything,” Betty whispers, like she can pull them back to their high school sleepovers, gossiping about Archie.

 

Veronica smiles like she’s back there with her. “He walked into City Hall with Fred. It was June, I had only been in Riverdale a week. I fell back in love with him in a second. He said, ‘Ronnie?’ and just like that, I knew I wasn’t going back to New York. We started dating almost immediately. And within a month, Archie took me down to Sweetwater River and proposed.

 

“We almost had a courthouse wedding, which I was fine with at that point— can you imagine? High school me and a courthouse wedding?”

 

Betty chuckles, surprised to feel a cheek-aching smile on her face. She can’t remember the last time she felt that. For the first time, here in the house of Fred’s dad jokes and pizza nights, of movies and misadventures and Vegas licking her awake too early in the morning, Betty remembers what it’s like to feel at home in Riverdale.

 

As if sensing her next question, Veronica says, “Fred had just been diagnosed—you may have heard about that? I was using the rest of the trust  towards his chemo and radiation. But of course, then _he_ insisted on the ceremony. I think he knew, you know?” Veronica’s voice snags and Betty feels tears prick her own eyes in response.

 

“So we had a small wedding. Fred… walked me… down the aisle.” Veronica stutters, crying as she stands and moves across the room, coming back with a photo from the wall instead of tissues.

 

Veronica is in a simple dress, low-backed and sleek. Fred’s cheeks are wet with emotion. At the end of the aisle, Archie covers his face, clearly mid-sob. Betty swipes trails of tears from her own cheeks.

 

“When we started dating again, Archie and I dreamed about leaving Riverdale. I would take the Bar, he would take the detective's exam. We thought about Boston, Chicago, a whole host of new starts. But it all happened so quickly. We moved into this house with Fred to take care of him, and then he was gone in less than a month.”

 

Betty pulls Veronica into a hug. “I’m so sorry I missed it, V.”

 

Veronica hugs her back, hard. “I’m sorry I didn’t look harder for you. There’s no excuse.”

 

Betty pulls away, shaking her head. “I didn’t make myself easy to find.”

 

There are a few beats of silence before Veronica dives in. “Yeah, enough about all that. What about you? Where have you been? Did you still end up going to Brown?”

 

Even though she knows it’s Veronica, Betty feels tempted to filter her information, to guard the details. “Yeah, I went to Brown. We could tailor our studies and I knew what I wanted to do, so I studied behavioral sciences, neuroscience, sociology…” She trails off, not sure how to reveal the next piece.

 

She can never bet on others reactions; she kept cutting herself off with Sheriff Jones, even though she’s sure he’ll learn eventually. For people who only knew her as a headline, her job seemed like a coping mechanism. For people who knew her before or beyond that, it seemed like Betty had undergone butterfly-esque rebirth from her trauma, which wasn’t true either.

 

“Then I was recruited, graduated, and went to Quantico. I served as a Special Agent in the Behavior Analysis Unit for seven years until this week, when I moved to Riverdale.”

 

Veronica’s mouth falls agape. “You’re an FBI agent.”

 

“Not right now, no. But technically, yes.”

 

Dumbstruck, Veronica stands and paces around the kitchen island. “So all that,” she gestures to the forensic team outside, “is like a regular Monday morning for you?”

 

Betty holds back another laugh. “I mean, no. I’m not in forensics and I don’t deal with skeletons most of the time but… I was weirdly relieved when you told me. I’d been up all night in that house...” She takes a deep breath. “That sounds crazy. I’ve never been through this process from the other side.”

 

Veronica stares at Betty again, as if for the first time. “Did you tell Jughead this?”

 

Betty’s face must be incredulous. “Who or what the hell is Jughead?”

 

Veronica releases a barking laugh. “Sheriff Jones. He’s a Southside kid, you know. They all have those weird fucking nicknames.”

 

Betty shakes her head. “No, I had already interrupted him mid-interrogation, and I think it embarrassed him. I didn’t need to rub it in.” Betty can’t help the sly smile that creeps across her face, remembering how flustered he’d gotten. The way he blushed and flipped his hair out of his face had been so endearing—adorable, even. “Anyway, I’m sure he’ll call me back in when his background check bounces back with a rejection from the federal government.”

 

Veronica laughs with her; it’s comforting. Betty’s eyes fall back to the window and Veronica sobers. “We probably shouldn’t be joking. There’s still a dead body in your backyard.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
...  
  
to be continued.


	2. identification

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to all who have read and loved this story so far. mucho mucho thanks to heartunsettledsoul for beta'ing (and giving me endless fodder for many chapters to come). and while I am very familiar with a lot of crime novels and tv series, don't hold me accountable for accuracy in these regards... but I doubt any of us are here for that.
> 
> enjoy!

_You are the hole in my head_

_You are the space in my bed_

_You are the silence in between_

_What I thought and what I said_

  
  


Making up the bed in the guest room becomes the perfect excuse for Veronica to slip away.

 

The forensic anthropologist is short and blunt with his questions, clearly more of a scientist than a detective, and Veronica’s hackles raise every time he cuts Betty off or ignores her question about the approximate age and sex of the victim—things that even Veronica knows from watching enough legal thrillers can be identified almost immediately. Archie had calmly guided her out of the living room, noticing Veronica’s chest puff up in preparation for an objection, for the subsequent cross-examination attack.

 

In the hallway, Archie rubs his hand up and down her shoulders and arms. “Betty can handle herself, Ron. The fewer people we upset, the more answers we’ll get.” Archie, eternally the good cop.

 

“Sure,” she grumbles. “More flies with honey than vinegar.”

 

Archie gives her the atta-girl smile she can’t help returning. “I’m going down to the station. Call me if you need anything?”

 

Veronica nods and Archie pulls her into his arms, inhaling deeply through her hair. She remembers that she hasn’t told him about Betty being a federal agent yet, but she closes her mouth as soon as she’s opened it. Archie is only a deputy, despite having taken the detective exam twice, now. She hates the forlorn look that crosses his face when a new case springs up that he won’t be involved in, the doubt in his own adequacy. Pulling away to look for evidence of such distress and is surprised to find that he seems content. Veronica leans in to kiss him, to seal the soft look she sees there. Archie is beyond adequate; he’s her rock, her home. He’s indispensable.

 

After the front door shuts behind him, Veronica peers into the living room, catching Betty mid-yawn. She needs a nap, if not a full night’s rest. Remembering the list of cleaning services Betty had scrawled out in the kitchen, Veronica decides she can make some calls while Betty lies down upstairs. Remembering that the sheets in the guest room have likely not been changed since Reggie passed out at their house during their St. Patrick’s Day party, she slips upstairs.

 

Even on a much tighter budget than she’s used to, Veronica prides herself in the way they’ve made the upstairs into _their_ home. She’d done Archie’s childhood bedroom quickly, since they moved in right before the wedding from Archie’s studio apartment just across the tracks. The dark blue walls were primed and painted a pale yellow, the furniture inside stored, repainted, or repurposed. After Fred died, cleaning out the master bedroom had been excruciating but necessary. The walls went from off white to a sage green. She bought a new bedroom set, new sheets, a new start. Neither of them wanted to leave the house behind, so they had to make it theirs.

 

Opening the linen closet and pulling out a clean sheet set and fresh quilt, Veronica considers for the first time what Betty would do with her own house, uninhabitable as it was. Even though neighbors complained, there was never a prayer in selling it back then. If that had been Betty’s plan before her husband struck bone in the backyard, any future hope of selling was probably gone out the window, too.

 

Stripping the bed, she stubs her toe on a book sticking out from the base—Torts: Theory and Practice, a relic from her most miserable semester of law school. Cursing breathlessly at the pain, the book nevertheless reminds Veronica that she needs to relocate a few things. Though she loves Betty with a deep and abiding fondness, she would never put it past her to snoop through a few drawers with an investigative curiosity. Veronica drops the sheets where they are and hobbles over to the bottom drawer of Archie’s old dresser, still full of too many band t-shirts. Both things are still where she left them, sandwiched between Nirvana and Pink Floyd.

 

In one hand, Veronica holds her unopened results from the Uniform Bar Examination. In the other, an unused pregnancy test she bought with a blond wig in Centreville, because even a middle class Veronica Lodge had to be entirely too much sometimes. It was her new, twisted version of Russian Roulette, but so far Veronica hadn't fired any shots, she only tested the weight of her respective firearms in her hands.

 

She acquired both of them the same week—after the St. Patrick’s Day party. The first came in the mail, the second with the sober realization that for the first time since Veronica went off the pill, they’d forgotten a condom in the heat of Jameson-fueled passion.

 

Even though it was the most expensive early detection test, she still couldn’t take it for another week. The test results could be opened at any moment, but now she had it in her head that she would do them at the same time. It was how she spent most work days now, imagining the combinations of results like a series of Punnett squares in biology class.

 

There was negative-negative, which most days feels like a net neutral. She could go back to pretending she never took the Bar; after all, she hadn’t told anyone other than New York state testing officials. She almost told Archie a week before the exam when he surprised her at City Hall with lunch, finding her hunched over a practice test. Then he’d slumped down and announced that he failed the detectives exam again, and Veronica couldn’t build his hopes up and break them with another probable failure, even (and maybe especially) if it wasn’t his own.

 

Truthfully, a similar thing happened with the forgotten condom. They’d both woken with wretched hangovers; the memory didn’t come back to her until the next day at the pharmacy she she’d gone to replace their bottle of ibuprofen and gone cold in front of the family planning section. She bought the test and intended to tell Archie as soon as she walked in the house, but when she came in, she found Archie talking to his mom on the phone. They’d talked hypothetically about kids, of course, in a _once we’ve settled into our careers_ kind of way. But there, with Mary on the phone, planting the seed of hope and potential for grief and disappointment in Archie’s heart was more than Veronica could handle. She would bear the question until it became a certainty.

 

Then, there was the first iteration of negative positive: failing the Bar but passing the pregnancy. She’d spent half an office day calculating the cost of childcare and keeping her City Hall job, concluding that this meant adding more hours by tending bar at the Bulldog or becoming a stay-at-home mom, and the first of those options was pretty counter-intuitive for a dead end, glorified receptionist position.

 

The next iteration of positive negative is where Veronica liked, most days, to imagine herself. This result was the plan all along, the intention behind following through on her promises: take the Bar before your 30th birthday. Convince Archie to quit his job, to try something new once she had a bigger income. Talk about family planning when they were pursuing their end goals.

 

Veronica tiptoes down the hallway to her own bedroom and pulls down a basket from the top shelf. She has three designer handbags, still, salvaged from the collection of goods she sold to cover the retainer for the lawyer who negotiated all of Hermione’s plea bargains. She tucks the envelope and box into the red Louis Vuitton and zips it up.

 

The last option, of course, is the double positive. In a way, she dreads it most, even if it is really only a skewed timeline compared to The Plan. It would mean taking interviews with a bump, addressing her pregnancy while knowing that the man on the other side of the desk cannot imagine a more idiotic addition to their firm than a hormonal and sleep deprived mother; she’d work herself into a rage over the silent sexism before her own eyes. The law partner would, of course, miss the message and confirm his own suspicions about her emotional stability.

 

It would mean sleepless nights reading briefs _and_ changing diapers. It would ask her what part of her legacy she would prioritize most, if she had to hold each side by side, children and career. She knows, of course, that these seem like antiquated questions in this day and age, especially for a girl who grew up planning to run the world because her mother was Madame Mayor. Veronica’s petulant inner-child reminds her that it was never a mystery which her own mother prioritized.

 

Maybe most of all, it would mean the shock of fresh grief intermixed with joy when she looked into Archie’s eyes and told him he was going to be a father.

 

Betty’s footsteps on the stairs echo through the hall and Veronica hastily shoves the basket back onto the top shelf and springs out of the room. “I’m setting up the guest room if you’d like to take a rest,” she calls out, adrenaline still coursing through her.

 

Coming to the top of the stairs, Betty seems to read the nervous energy radiating from her pores. God damn the behavioral sciences, Betty could probably _smell_ the anxiety in the air. “Are you alright, V?”

 

“Yeah!” Veronica squeaks, her voice pitched an octave too high. “I just wanted to change the sheets for you—those were recently soaked with drunk Reggie sweat.” She closes the dresser drawer with her foot and stretches the new sheets on. Betty leans, exhausted, against the doorframe. Veronica's brain somersaults to find a new topic before Betty can close in on her with any more questions.

 

“Did Dr. Curdle tell you anything?”

 

Betty shakes her head. “No, he said it wasn’t up to him to disclose that information with me. Most likely he wants to preserve any of my reactions fresh for the dissection of the actual law enforcement. I’ll have to wheedle it out of Jones or wait for him to drop it on me during an interview where he’s trying to get me to confess.”

 

Veronica shivers. “You don’t really think you’re going to be a suspect, right?” She’s watched plenty of crime television, but by that logic, she and Archie were more likely suspects. Well, she was. Archie wore guilt like a dog who ate a plate of cookies off the counter—sick to his stomach and the evidence streaked across his face.

 

Betty opens her mouth to respond, but a yawn stretches her jaw wide instead. “It’s not really worth speculating.”

 

But if Veronica knows anything, it’s that no matter how worthwhile the speculation, the mind is a machine that never stops.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Archie pulls into the station and parks his red truck next to Jughead’s ancient green Ford and Sweet Pea’s brand new Silverado on the edge of the lot. Even in the parking lot, Archie gravitates towards the detectives; he likes people to know that he may be a deputy, but the detectives are the crew he’s really in with. They’re his drinking buddies, his boxing ring sparring partners, the guys who slapped together a bachelor party for him at the last minute.

 

Plus, the forensics team from the county had debriefed with _him,_ since the sheriff had gone back to the station. Archie swaggers through the parking lot, cradling the newest update, however grim, with giddiness and delight. He can already picture Jughead’s face when he shares the news, the way his eyes will widen and narrow, the mixture of revulsion and curiosity. Pushing through front door, chest puffed out, Archie sidles up to the front desk.

 

“Morning, Ethel,” Archie nodes and smiles, tapping the counter with just a hint of self-importance.

 

“Hey Archie, how can I help you?” Ethel smiles, managing to continue typing as she looks up at him. Archie considers, not for the first time, how Ethel was capable of more than a front desk manager at a small sheriff’s station. Then again, he could say the same for his own wife.

 

“Where’s the sheriff?”

 

“A briefing with the detectives, something about a new case. Seemed pretty intense, I wouldn’t interrupt.”

 

Archie swallows the punch that the word _interrupt_ lands in his gut. “Thanks, Eth,” he forces, internally fixing his crumpled ego. Today, he has a reason to walk in to the detectives’ briefing and steal the show.

 

Sweeping past his own office corral, Archie glances into Jughead’s office. It doesn’t take more than a cursory glance to know which bulging box of case files Jughead has left splayed across the desk. Human remains in the backyard of Harold Cooper had everyone thinking the same thing, whether they were saying it or not.

 

Further down the hall, he surveys the conference room before barging in. Jughead scribbles down questions on the board. Sweet Pea and Mad Dog both talk over each other as Jughead’s forehead becomes progressively more creased.

 

 _The Coopers_ is written large, the dates of residence in the house next to each family member.

 

To the side, Jughead has written:

_Natural causes/illegal burial_

_Foul Play/Homicide_

_Black Hood?_

 

Archie takes a deep breath and raps three times on the door. Their heads snap up. Sweet Pea motions him in.

 

“Ahh, the man I have to thank for waking me up at the ass crack of dawn to come to work!”

 

Archie knows Sweet Pea is joking, but he grits his teeth anyway. Jughead steps in. “We started this briefing thirty minutes later than usual, Pea.”

 

Sweet Pea shrugs, his antics only ever dissuaded by Jughead. Archie knows it’s about more than just his role as sheriff; Sweet Pea and Jughead go back so far that they’re practically brothers. Still, today it bothers Archie more than usual.

 

Mad Dog greets him with a nod instead of a quip. “Whatchya got for us, Arch?”

 

Archie takes a breath to keep cool, to stay professional and even keel even though he’s practically bursting at the seams. “Talked with forensics. Obviously no ID yet, but he could tell that it’s a male between sixteen and twenty, and the body is at least ten years old. Maybe older. They’re running dental records, should have a confirmation by the end of the day, but...”

 

He watches, waiting for them to connect the dots between _teenage male_ and _ten years ago,_ the news he kept from Veronica and Betty as he rushed out of the house. Sweet Pea looks confused for a moment but then shivers. Mad Dog scrawls down a note, looking to the sheriff for a reaction.

 

Jughead opens his mouth and holds it for a beat before speaking, but Archie can already read the skepticism in his eyes. “Arch…” he starts, and Archie can feel his shoulders droop, the pity in his boss’ eyes at an untrained officer leaping to conclusions. “It’s an interesting thought, but it doesn’t exactly fit a Black Hood narrative, and frankly… that’s what we’re looking at right now.”

 

Archie chews on this, knowing that Jughead is probably right, but still feeling something reel in his gut about it. “Just keeping you posted,” he says.

 

“Yeah, thanks man,” Sweet Pea offers like an afterthought. As Archie turns to leave again, Mad Dog calls out, “See you at the ring later?”

 

Archie flashes the facade of a smile. _Just a boxing buddy._ “Yeah, yeah, of course. Catch you then.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Betty knows she sleeps soundly because she dreams for the first time in months. Polly is there—they go to the National Gallery in DC, and Betty imagines that Polly must live there. Maybe Betty drives up to meet with her often. Maybe Polly’s working for an NGO or as a public school teacher. Betty can picture that; a class of first graders who love Miss Polly.

 

In the dream, they buy flaky pastries and wander the impressionist wing. Then, sitting on a bench on the National Mall, Polly leans over and puts a hand on Betty’s leg. “How’s dad?”

 

This is how Betty wakes, disoriented in the late afternoon light of Archie’s childhood bedroom, her pulse racing. _Polly._ For the first time, it occurs to Betty that the skeleton in the backyard could very well belong to someone she knows.

 

Betty gags, but unlike the night before, she tamps it down with a few deep breaths and some splashes of cold water to her face in the bathroom sink. Pacing back into the room, Betty knows she needs to talk to Sheriff Jones again.

 

She’s not used to being out of the loop in an investigation. As a profiler, she is the sponge and fount for all information, analysis, decision making. That morning in the living room with the forensic anthropologist, positioned on the other side of the room from where she was used to, Betty started digging her nails into her palms when he asked quite bluntly about the Black Hood’s tactic of live burial. Betty could feel the dirt under her nails, trying to unearth Mr. Svenson, unaware it was her own father pressing the gun to her head.

 

The thought didn’t clear until the nails broke skin, the pain blurring the memory out. Such an old habit, surfacing like a old wart. She hadn’t opened those scars for many years, and she tries and fails not to feel too much guilt about it.

 

It is all too much: the derelict house, the garden, the view from Archie’s window into her childhood bedroom where, thankfully, the shades are drawn. _You’re overstimulated,_ Betty self-diagnoses, _that’s the only reason you dreamed of Polly. It’s not a sign._

 

Still pacing back and forth, Betty catches a whiff of herself and grimaces. The bathroom has been redecorated since Archie’s teenage years and filled with Veronica-approved bath products, and Betty decides not to resist a long, hot shower. Nails against her scalp, fingers between her toes, she rubs away the sleepless night of going at the fireplace grout with her toothbrush (which she makes another mental note to replace). She massages the thoughts of Polly into submission, using the pressure to blur out the immutable details of her sister's lilac headband, the turquoise twinset sweater. Betty tries to put Polly in another set of clothes in her memory, but it’s the photo from her missing posters, the full page in the Riverdale Register that dominate her subconscious. Betty’s fingers are pruned by the time her dream has been reduced to the usual dull ache in the pit of her stomach.

 

Feeling a measure closer to herself again, she emerges into the steamy bathroom and towels off her hair. The thought of donning the sweater and jeans on her floor makes her skin crawl, and all of her clothes are still next door. However strong and capable she felt for making it through the first night, the prospect of going back now seems ten times worse. Betty considers how long Veronica and Archie will let her sleep in this bedroom. How long, even, she might be able to go without clean underwear. She makes for the hallway and almost runs into Veronica.

 

“Oh!” Veronica exclaims. “Sorry, I heard the shower and thought—”

 

Betty retucks her towel more securely around her still damp body. “I’m sorry I should have asked—”

 

They both laugh nervously, waiting for the other to continue their interrupted thought. Veronica caves first.

 

“This has been the weirdest day." Her eyes light up. "We need to get out of here. To think this is your welcome back to Riverdale! No, no, we’re going out. Here, come borrow some clothes.”

 

For a second, Betty hesitates. Her evening plans had been to strategize for the inevitable call down to the sheriff’s station where she would demand some answers from Jones. He’d be miffed when she takes over his interview again, but she would be able to quiet the anxieties sparked by her dream. Also, she imagines him standing with all his mustered authority, shoulders broad and fixing her with a piercing blue glare—an unexpected shiver rolls down her spine and she decides not to push the thought any further.

 

Instead, Betty trails Veronica into the master bedroom, where Veronica opens a still quite substantially stocked closet before pulling out her phone and queueing up a pop-y playlist that clashes comically with the mood of the day.

 

Yet somehow, Betty feels a shimmer of magic in her stomach, a shine wash over her vision; she’s sixteen again, watching Veronica flip through the hangers and toss selections onto a chair. “You’ve still got quite the closet, V.”

 

Veronica bops her head along to the music and smiles mischievously. “I still indulge myself every once in a while. I’ve become known as a ferocious scavenger in most consignment stores within an hour radius.”

 

Betty laughs, picturing her friend slipping a card to store managers and demanding they call her first at any sight of Valentino or Jimmy Choo. “They can’t take everything from us.”

 

By ‘they’ she means Veronica’s parents and immediately wonders if it was an ill-conceived joke, but Veronica meets her eyes and softly responds, “No, they can’t.”

 

Realizing just how much she needs it, Betty stands and hugs Veronica, who takes only a second to intensify the embrace. Even if Riverdale seems to give her nightmares, there is love here, too. Betty hopes that love might just have a stronger hold than death.

  
  
  


Veronica drives them to the Bulldog Tavern, a building on the Southside that Betty had only passed a few times during her years in Riverdale, back when it was the White Wyrm. The drive is fascinating in and of itself. The Northside doesn’t really look like the Northside anymore, which makes it a little easier to take in, to observe objectively, like a brand new place. Many stores on Main Street are closed and boarded up. A handful have fresh, newly renovated fronts: a bakery that Veronica notes is owned by an odd woman named Evelyn Evernever. A boxing gym that seems busy—that’s where Archie is, Veronica explains, and Betty makes a quippy comment about Archie’s revolving door of hobbies.

 

When they pass the cemetery, Veronica reaches over and takes Betty’s hand. A little bit of bile reaches the back of her throat, but she squeezes Veronica’s hand back.

 

“It’s okay, I can do this, V,” Betty whispers, both for herself and to prevent Veronica’s forthcoming question about whether maybe they shouldn’t just pick food up and head home.

 

Still, it aches to see that Pop’s is now _Sweetwater Olde Fashioned Soda Fountain._ Betty still compartmentalizes happiness as a strawberry milkshake and Archie’s laughter, still makes herself grilled cheese for comfort food. 

 

Most everything seems preserved except the sign, which Veronica tells her now hangs in the Riverdale Historical Museum, which is really just a room in city call that she’s curated through saving pieces of town history as different spots have been sold, knocked down, or looted due to disuse.

 

When they cross the train tracks, the unofficial border of the Southside, Betty is surprised that it looks the same or better as places on the Northside. Multiple abandoned lots have rows of planting beds for a community garden. A row of houses look newly refurbished with signs reading FOGARTY CONSTRUCTION on the lawns.

 

In her teenage years, when Betty might have made forays into the “rough” side of town, Alice had never let her go further south than Pop’s or the library. The unspoken rules for Northside kids dictated that buying drugs from Southside High kids was the only reason to cross the tracks, and Betty was far more consumed with her perfect grade point average and restricted by a sharp curfew to get into that. So they had their places: Northside kids went to the Bijou for movies, not the drive-in. Northside kids ate at Pop’s and side-eyed the rare transgression of a gangly, plaid and leather clad Southsider. Polly always urged her, _never talk to them, especially the boys,_ whom she claimed to have run into at a few parties _._ Later, Betty couldn’t help but wonder if it mattered to look out for Southside boys when Northside boys proved to be the most dangerous for her sister.

 

Veronica pulls into the Bulldog Tavern parking lot and Betty feels herself mentally donning her investigative armor. _It’s just a bar. It’s just the possibility of seeing people who have known you your whole life._

 

Driving back to Virginia and interrogating a serial killer suddenly sounds like the better option. _Then again, for all I know, there’s a homicidal psychopath to be found right here in Riverdale. God knows it wouldn’t be the first._ Betty presses one of her palm scars to inspire a bruise-like pain, cursing herself again for using it as a distraction tactic.

 

Stepping out onto the gravel Betty thanks her instincts to turn down Veronica’s shoe choice—a pair of four inch bright red heels. Still, the only time Betty dresses like _this,_ she’s usually at government functions or, on occasion, undercover in the field. She doesn’t go _out_ in her regular life, whatever socializing she could vaguely claim beyond her colleagues. Betty was close with Sabrina, who she’d known since training at Quantico and who got promoted with her to the Behavior Analysis Unit. Other than that, she kept to herself.

 

“Wow, I’m good,” Veronica smirks as Betty closes the car door. Betty adjusts the somewhat low-cut black top for the umpteeth time but relaxes a bit when she catches a glimpse in the window reflection of the high-waisted velvet pants Veronica had literally thrown at her. Even she can’t deny how they highlight her well-defined legs.

 

The Bulldog Tavern is every bit as small-town camp as Betty expected. The walls are plastered with so much Bulldog paraphernalia, she wonders what’s left to line the trophy cabinets of Riverdale High. The omnipresent Number 7 jersey is framed on the back wall, and if Betty’s not mistaken, a MANTLE jersey is hung over the fireplace. She’s not confident that Reggie even understands the humor in it.

 

It’s surprisingly busy for a weekday evening, but it might be the combined effect of the low lighting making the warm buzz feel more concentrated. It might be that Betty feels hyper conscious of the people who latch onto her with their gaze, trying to figure out where they remember her from.

 

Veronica struts up to the bar and claims them some seats. “What do you drink, Betty? Beer? Wine? I have a few Veronica Lodge specialty cocktails I can strong-arm Reggie into digging out the top shelf liquor for.”

 

Betty takes a seat as Reggie Mantle himself walks over, wearing a look she reads as delight and trepidation, opening his mouth to say something that Betty already knows she’s going to cringe at. Still, at least Reggie isn't a stranger; Archie, Reggie and Betty would be Polly’s pupils when they played school. Reggie could vacillate from her tormentor to her defender in a single day in high school—murmuring crude innuendo’s behind her back in first period but then silencing Cheryl with a single look when she made dramatic quips about the psycho Cooper sisters.

 

“Damn, Betty. Wherever you’ve been all these years has been _good_ to you,” Reggie drawls, not so subtly raking his eyes over her.

 

While she’d been planning to play it off, Betty finds herself biting back. “And it looks like you literally recreated the Riverdale High athletic wing to relieve high school _ad nauseum_.”

 

Veronica lets out a low whistle, but Reggie just chuckles. “Touche, lil Coop, touche.”

 

She’d been ready to apologize, to admit that she was a little on edge, but Betty bristles further at the nickname, her mind flashing back to her dream. Veronica takes the opportunity to jump in and order them some drinks.

 

Reggie pours them some water and starts making something that requires a top shelf bottle of tequila. Betty turns back to Veronica, determined to refocus on their girl’s night, on catching up, so she asks more about Archie becoming a cop.

 

Veronica jokes that she’d been pretty against it at first—she’s always been intent on being a defense attorney. But a wistful look comes over her as she talks about the future.

 

“I honestly wish Archie would quit and manage the gym or something full time. He’s failed his detectives exam twice and now I feel like he’s staying at the sheriff’s department out of loyalty.” Veronica’s voice grows thick, like she’s fighting back emotion.

 

Betty’s stomach twists, wondering with envy what it’s like to love someone so much that you bind your whole self up with their hopes, dreams, failures. If she won’t ever be terrified of that. The longing in Veronica’s voice reminds her of the fervor in Sabrina’s when she talks about Nick. Betty hopes her face looks sympathetic, but it might just look a little pained. _Jesus, Betty. It’s fucked up to be jealous while your friend is nearly crying._

 

Veronica sighs again and clears her throat. “I think Archie needs the ghost of his father to tell him that he’ll always be proud of him no matter what.”

 

Betty turns that thought over for a long moment, thinking of her own ghosts, whether they’d be proud of her. But pride never really factored into it—her mom would probably be horrified that Betty spent her life tracking violent crime.  _She’d just want me to be free._

 

Reggie returns, two cocktails in hand. “Listen, first one is on the house, Betty. Welcome to the Tavern.” Betty finds herself smiling at both Reggie and the drink he hands her. 

 

"The boys already filled me in on Archie’s little discovery this morning. Talk about a rough welcome home.”

 

Betty’s smile falters, irritated at the thought that the law enforcement of Riverdale is just blabbing details of a very recent investigation to the local bartender. _Small fucking towns._

 

“Who told you about that?” Betty tries to keep her voice even.

 

Reggie gestures to the end of the bar. “The law himself.”

 

Sheriff Jones sits at the other end of the bar, but he’s not in uniform anymore. She wonders if that’s why she didn’t recognize him when they came in. He’s laughing at something the other bartender—a woman with long blonde and pink hair about her own age (and maybe his own age? Betty considers how invasive it would be to use her FBI search capacity). She’s not _staring,_ just trying to read who Jones and the bartender are to one another by their body language; he’s miles more at ease than he’d been in the dining room. Jones smile lights his whole face up. It makes Betty’s heart skip a beat.

 

“You there, B?” Veronica asks, and Betty doesn’t miss the amusement in her tone. Reggie is looking at her, too. Betty wills herself not to blush.

 

“Sorry, um, I gotta talk to Jones for a second.” It’s a cover, of course. She had no intention of talking to Jones until he called her in to the station, but here they are. She takes a big sip of her drink.

 

Veronica shrugs contentedly but adds, “Fine, but don’t tell him more than you’ve told me about badass FBI profiler Betty, okay?”

 

Betty rubs a suddenly sweaty palm on her pants and stands, cursing herself for feeling nervous. She’d been so composed that morning—which now felt like years ago. Now in the low lit bar, on his turf with his nice floppy hair and dressed down in a jean jacket, and Betty feels completely off-kilter.

 

But she hesitates too long, because he looks over and notices her, the smile slipping from his face. Something in her stomach dips with disappointment, but she uses the moment to regain composure. _At least humorless Jones will be easier to work with._

 

 

* * *

  


Jughead has never particularly wanted to read people’s minds; he always imagined that his worst fears would only be proved correct. That his mother actually cared about no one except herself. That his father cared entirely too much about everyone’s opinion and self-sabotaged to avoid the constant disappointment. But when he looks up and sees Betty Cooper in the Tavern, he wants to know everything running through her head.

 

He’d already tried all the tactics in his own power. He read the case files again, then all the news articles, of which there were surprising few with any mention of Betty. Most unsettling, his background check bounced back. He ran another just to test the system (and it was worth checking whether Gladys had added any more felonies to her record), ensuring it wasn’t a technical error.

 

So after lunch, he’d gone into full detective mode. With some deeper digging, he found her listed as graduating _summa cum laude_ from Brown University, which seemed to fit the sharpness he detected during their meeting that morning. Maybe some of the coolness too, a superiority thing. Jughead wouldn’t know; he hasn’t met many Ivy League graduates. But the trail dwindled quickly from there, other than the Virginia license plate on the car in her driveway. He’d been thinking about running the plate number to see if he could get an address when Archie had knocked on his office door and sent him jumping a foot out of his chair and practically smashing his computer mouse to close the open search tabs.

 

Archie had just wanted to know (again) if he had heard back from the forensics team yet (he hadn’t). Jughead hated having to walk this professional line with Archie; he’d promote him in a second if he had that kind of power. Archie makes a pretty great deputy, aside from the occasional bumble. Riverdale loves and respects him. But Archie wants more, and it makes almost every day of Jughead’s work life a little bit awkward.

 

Telling himself it was only to perk Archie up and loop him in, Jughead attempted a casual, “Have you talked to Betty at all?”

 

Archie had just looked confused. _This is why you aren’t going to pass a damn detectives exam, Andrews._ “No, should I? I think she went to sleep.”

 

Jughead tries to pretend they’re not in the office anymore—he and Archie get along really when they don’t have to play off the boss/employee script. “How are you were doing with all that? You seemed pretty overwhelmed about the whole reunion thing this morning.”

 

Archie shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, we talked about my dad a little, but the forensics people were kinda clamoring to get a word in with her.”

 

Jughead nodded, trying and failing to look supportive. “Thanks, Arch. I’ll keep you updated.” Granted, Archie was maybe the tenth on a long list of people to inform about the identification of the remains, but it seemed to satisfy Archie enough to announce that he was on his way out for the day, headed to the gym for a spar with Mad Dog.

 

Now, Betty Cooper is staring at him with a new expression—not guarded and deadpan or sweet and soft, but with a twist of annoyance that makes his blood pressure spike especially once she starts walking down the bar in his direction.

 

Jughead opens his mouth to say something, not sure what will come out— an apology? An awkward pleasantry about the coincidence in running into her in a town with very few public spaces left to speak of?

 

But Betty speaks first, leaning against the bar instead of sitting. Her legs are long and muscular and Jughead is a little disgusted at himself for the fact that his eyes flick back one too many times to be subtle.

 

“Sheriff Jones. I was expecting your call.”

 

Jughead coughs on the dregs of his last sip of beer. “Excuse me?” He thinks his face might be on fire and by the glint of mirth in Betty’s eyes, she knows it’s not from the coughing.

 

“Well?” Betty’s smirk betrays more of her amusement. “Let me guess. You re-read all the Cooper family case files. When the background check bounced back, you did a Google search. What does it say out there anyway? That I was on the Brown debate team?”

 

Jughead wants to melt into the floorboards with each of her words. “I—you know—no.”

 

Betty tilts her head, losing the smirk. “You what? Oh, you didn’t find the debate team thing. That’s okay, it’s actually not true. It was a true crime of Providence project, but we had to cover that up for obvious reasons.”

 

Jughead can feel Toni staring at them, perhaps alarmed by the fact that he was almost cowering next to this unfamiliar woman. Realizing Toni isn’t the only one who can see that the chief investigator of the county is being interrogated in a very public, very local bar, he sits up straight and merely thinks about suggesting that they take their conversation outside when Betty coughs out a laugh.

 

“There’s no need to go outside,” she murmurs, now soft, pretense dropped, and slips onto the bar stool. Apparently, Betty can actually read minds.

 

Taking the moment to regain some grip on their exchange, Jughead decides to lean into her narrative. “Actually, all I found was your GPA, but I did consider running your license plate. My conscience, apparently, got the better of me.”

 

Something about that makes her let out a full, genuine laugh— her green eyes crinkle at the edges and Jughead’s mouth goes dry with the thought that if she wasn’t a potential suspect in a murder investigation, he’d feel extraordinarily lucky to sit at this bar with Betty Cooper under entirely friendlier circumstances.

 

He’s already willfully slipping into the fantasy: the small town sheriff and the new-in-town woman meeting cute in the local bar, sharing a drink. Maybe he’d ask her to go somewhere else, in some alternative universe where there’s another place in Riverdale to go. Then she would decline, but she’d leave her number scribbled on a napkin when she takes off for the night.  

 

“Hello? Jones?”

 

Jughead blinks, undoubtedly blushing again, but this time he notices that Betty seems a little pink, too. Then again, the Tavern is notoriously dim, just like its predecessor. He’s looking down at this folded hands, ready to give in, when he notices that Betty has started drumming her fingers against her glass, her jaw a fraction more tensed. The license plate. The pieces jam together—Virginia, the rejected background check, smug anticipation of every question, the mind reading.

 

“Jesus Christ, you’re not a fucking CIA agent are you?”

 

Betty laughs again, even harder, but her eyebrows nearly fly off her face; she’s impressed.

 

“Not quite. Quantico, not Langley.”

 

He knows that he should be furious, but Jughead can’t help laughing, too. Betty’s a little bit cocky, but then again, who wouldn’t be in her position? Plus, he likes it. Every second he spends with her, the portrait of an aloof, traumatized girl in the newspaper unravels. Not once in their ten minute interaction has he thought of her as the Black Hood’s daughter.

 

Betty downs the rest of her drink. “Of course, I can have the FBI send you my file. I’m not trying to be cagey. I have nothing to hide, Mr. Jones.”

 

The title makes his beer turn sour on his tongue. _Sheriff_ Jones is one thing. The other reminds him of someone he’s spent the last decade fighting _not_ to become. “Everyone calls me Jughead, Betty.”

 

She smiles. “Yes, right. The nickname.”

 

“Hey,” he defends. “My oldest friends are named Fangs and Sweet Pea. One of my detectives goes by _Mad Dog._  Anyway, at least I’m not named after a mythic American housewife, _Betty_.”

 

Betty allows herself a muffled laugh and searches his face, pleased by something. “Is it a street name kind of thing? You know, Southside kids giving themselves aliases?”

 

Her tone is free of judgement, but Jughead is still reminded that they grew up on two very different sides of the same town. “Something like that. A lot of us are juniors, gifted or burdened with our father’s name. For me it was always more about naming myself.”

 

“I thought about doing that,” Betty muses. “Changing my name.”

 

Jughead finishes his beer and Toni moves in to ask if he wants anything else, but he holds up a hand and looks intently at Betty. “Why didn’t you?”

 

Betty glances down the bar, seeming to remember that Veronica is still sitting at the other end, now chatting contentedly with Reggie but still looking rather alone. “Same reason I didn’t—”

 

Jughead’s phone buzzes on the bar and he flips to silence it, motioning for Betty to finish her sentence. “Shit,” he breathes, seeing the number from the county. “I’m sorry, I have to…” he gestures to the call.

Betty nods and mimes that she’s going to go back to Veronica. He wants to hold her there, to hear her finish her thought. His heart plummets as Betty gathers her things and slides off the stool. Jughead turns and faces away from the bar, not wanting to watch her go, even though he senses that she pauses for a moment in hesitation. He takes a deep breath and answers the call.

 

“This is Sheriff Jones.”

 

Dr. Curdle starts listing the tests they’ve done and the exact data they’re still waiting to confirm, but that they should have more comprehensive details by tomorrow mid-morning, and would he be able to come down to the lab?

 

Jughead agrees, slightly distracted when he chances a look across the room and  sees Veronica and Betty move over the the pool table, joking that they aren’t sure what they’re doing. He loves that in a bar full of former Bulldog bros, they’re not even slightly interested in getting some highly condescending and flirtatious “pointers” from anyone.

 

“However, we have confirmed the identity of the remains, Jones, and this may become… a small spectacle,” Dr. Curdle’s voice jolts him back.

 

 _Dead body, dead body, dead body,_ he chants, closing his eyes to refocus on something other than Betty Cooper’s legs.

 

“Jones?”

 

Jughead clears his throat, his pulse quickening. “You have an ID?”

 

When Dr. Curdle reads the name, the blood drains from Jughead’s face and a shiver quakes through him as he stares fixedly at the Bulldog wall of glory, directly in this line of vision. Numbly agreeing on a time, he hangs up and looks down at the bar.

 

There is a phone number on Betty’s napkin. Underneath, she's written  _call me when they have an ID._

 

Jughead overpays his tab and slips out the door. He spends the whole drive home gripping the steering wheel harder and harder. _I cannot tell her. I cannot tell her._

 

An hour later, lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling, he reaches over to his nightstand, uncrumples the napkin, and starts entering Betty’s number into his phone.

 

Jughead texts: _The body is Jason Blossom._

 

She responds immediately. _If you’re going to the lab, pick me up on your way. Do not try to stop me._

 

 

 

 

 

 

...

to be continued

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> your comments are my lifeblood and always appreciated!


	3. victims

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to all the lovely readers of this fic and i hope you continue to enjoy :)  
> and "thank you" is pretty inadequate for my beta heartunsettledsoul who truly gave me so many ideas for this chapter that I hope you love reading as much as I loved writing them!

_ You are the night-time fear _

_ You are the morning when it's clear _

_ When it's over you'll start _

_ You're my head, you're my heart _

  
  
  
  


When Archie comes downstairs for his morning run, he finds Betty already awake in the kitchen, eating a piece of toast with her tablet open to a news story with a photo of the hole he dug only yesterday, though it feels like half a lifetime ago. He pauses at the base of the stairs, thinking about how they’ve all had their fair share of life events that initiated a fracture, a distinct  _ before  _ and  _ after _ . Wondering, yet already knowing, whether this would become another juncture.

 

“Morning, Betty.” Archie greets softly, not wanting to startle her as he pads over to the island and stands across from her.

 

Betty looks up and Archie recognizes the tight smile that crosses her face, the pleasant but distant expression Betty employed when Principal Weatherbee praised her for “doing so well with so much on her plate.” A look for people she knew but wasn’t sure she could trust, like when Hermione Lodge hold them that she would do everything, as mayor, to catch the Black Hood while they kept vigil for his wounded father in the hospital. 

 

Archie hopes that he hasn't become one of those people, too, but Betty has plenty of reason to feel that their years of trust, of backflips into the Sweetwater swimming hole, of learning to drive in his dad’s pickup down the backroads, have fallen into the world of childhood myth. Trust needed to be earned back, especially after his first efforts to be neighborly had failed so spectacularly. But even more so, after squandering their trust during senior year, when he thought Betty was going crazy. She snapped at him and Veronica in the lunchroom, screaming about how they didn’t have room for her anymore, now that they were together. Weeks, months went by and he noticed Betty, dark circles under eyes, dirt under her nails, isolated in the Blue and Gold Office even though the paper wasn’t coming out every week anymore. 

 

They kept watch; it was Archie and Veronica who heard Alice’s scream the night Hal was caught, who called Betty and told her that something was happening. Betty explained everything that night to them, to Tom Keller, to the FBI, and assured them she wasn’t angry at them.  _ It was all him. He did this to me. He gave me no choices. _

 

Betty glances back and forth between the screen and Archie a few times before setting the tablet down and greeting him back. “Hey. I would have made coffee but I think you’re out.” Betty suddenly can’t sit still, fidgeting in her seat, eyes darting around the room.

 

There was once a time that Archie could read Betty like a book. When he knew by the look on her face then he opened the front door whether they were going to play secret agents or Lord of the Rings. He knew when she was tired of Reggie playing with them and wanted Reggie to go home so they could just read comic books in the treehouse. Then, after about age fourteen, she inched outside his comprehension. They would go days without speaking at all, or when Archie asked, Betty would want to hang out with her sister instead. When Veronica moved to Riverdale, he gained an interpreter.  _ Betty had a fight with her mom. Chuck was being a dick to Betty about Polly in gym. Actually, if you could throw a football into Chuck Clayton’s penis during football, that would be perfect.  _

 

If teenage Betty was a challenging text, this Betty was untranslated French literature. One moment, he sees something he recognizes, but in the next, she’s gone. She looks like Betty, but that’s all he can really say.

 

“Oh, sorry, yeah, I’ll pick some up later.” He tries to make eye contact, but Betty is zeroed in on finishing her last bite of toast. 

 

He watches her chew and swallow, clenching every muscle in his body as if to absorb the tension of their silence crossing from awkward to painful. The only questions he can think of are about the case, popping up like spam windows in his brain. Even if he’s not technically involved in the investigation, he should stay discreet; it’s what Jughead would do. 

 

There are the more complicated questions, places they have not yet tread: How have the past ten years been? How did you survive them? What made you come back? 

 

What comes out is, “What do you need help with on the house?”

 

Betty finally meets his eye, her forehead creased, the same look she used to get at the thought of others doing something kind for her, like when Archie would bring her pop tarts for their walk to school, or when Veronica insisted on buying Betty an over-the-top prom dress junior year when she got asked by Trev Brown. “Arch, that’s so kind. To be honest, I have no idea what’s going to happen with the house. I mean, it needs a lot of work. And I’m not sure what the end goal of all that work will even be.”

 

He scoffs, “Yeah, nothing more marketable than a murder house except a double murder house.”

 

Betty laughs and cringes at the same time, and Archie’s heart warms because it feels familiar. “God knows how many more skeletons are in those closets.” She’s snarky, but there’s an edge of darkness in her tone.

 

Redoubling in earnestness, Archie presses again, wanting her to know how far he’s ready to go to repay his debt to her. “Really, Betty. I’ll help however I can. I mean, unless you went out and became a contractor or something and can handle it all on your own.” He knows it’s a strange way to pose the question of  _ what have you been up to?  _ He wishes he had a cup of coffee just to have a conversational prop to hide behind. 

 

“Hardly. Actually, Arch, I should tell you—”

 

A knock on the door startles them both. Betty flushes pink, which Archie hardly has time to analyze before pacing down the hallway. He opens the door to Jughead, out of uniform and out of place for an early morning off the clock, holding two disposable coffee cups. With a jolt of excitement, Archie realizes that Jughead is here to fill him in, though Archie isn’t on duty today. He must have gotten an ID on the body.

 

“Oh, hey! Morning, Jug. Do you want to come in? Unless—do you want to talk out here?” He gestures to the discretion of the porch. Archie can’t figure out the coffee cups Jughead clutches like a lifeline or the blank look of surprise and unease Jug gives him before looking to something over Archie's shoulder.

 

“Um,” Jughead clears his throat. Archie turns to see Betty slipping on her coat. He doesn’t know where to look, glancing back and forth between a stoic Betty and an uncharacteristically bewildered Jughead.

 

Betty sighs, shooting a pointed glance to Jughead. “Are you going to tell him?”

 

Unsure if he’s ever heard anything so brash from Betty towards an authority figure _ , _ Archie looks back to Jughead, who seems to grow more uncomfortable by the second, unable to look Archie in the eye before taking a deep breath.

 

“Arch… your theory was right. About the body. It’s Jason Blossom.” 

 

The weight of Jughead’s words doesn’t really hit; his mind floods with a chorus of  _ I was right. I was right. My theory was right! _

 

Hardy thinking, Archie reaches into the front closet for his own coat, knocking the hanger to the floor, and fishes for his key ring from its hook, patting his coat pockets and smoothing his still wild hair, unkempt because he planned to shower after his run—

 

But then Jughead clears his throat in such a familiar way that Archie freezes, knowing that he’s being stopped, being told to settle down. 

 

Archie looks to Betty, trying to tame his annoyance. “Where are  _ you _ going?” It comes out almost like a whine, but he’s too flustered to care.

 

“The lab,” Betty murmurs with a hint of guilt, which Archie appreciates, even though her words feel like a stab. The sputtering from his mouth is humiliating, but the words of frustration won’t even form on his tongue. Why is  _ Betty  _ going to the lab and not  _ him? _

 

Betty continues, looking almost as pained as he feels. “Arch, I wanted to tell you earlier but in all the craziness—I’m going with Sheriff Jones because I’m a federal agent.”

 

Though he hears her words, they take a while to register. “Wha—what? So you’re… wait,  _ what _ ?” 

 

Betty cracks a sympathetic smile, which just twists the knife in Archie’s gut. “I really was just trying to tell you. I’ll explain more later, we should go.” 

 

Jughead murmurs, “Sorry, Archie. And I’m sorry I dismissed your idea. We’ll talk later, okay?” 

 

Betty leans in and squeezes his bicep, but Archie stays frozen as they file out the front door, down the porch to Jughead’s truck. Betty takes the coffee from Jughead’s hand and Archie can’t feel his limbs anymore. 

 

He slumps into the kitchen, collapsing onto a stool and staring at the wall for what feels like minutes, but may be hours until Veronica walks downstairs, finding him in what probably looks like a trance. 

 

“Arch? What happened?” She rushes to his side, like maybe more than just his pride has been injured. He flinches away like that’s true. 

 

“Did you know about Betty being an FBI agent?”

 

The melting eyes of pity confirm the depth of the pit in Archie’s stomach and his drops his face to the cradle of his hands. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why do I seem to be the last person to know things? Even my own damn theories?”

 

Veronica’s face morphs into shock. “You thought it was Jason?” 

 

Archie flinches. He should have known. “God, not you, too!”

 

Veronica strokes his arm, his shoulder, his neck. “Oh, Arch, I’m sorry. I was with Betty last night when Jughead let her know and you didn’t get home until late and I figured someone would let you know in the morning…”

 

Archie leans into her caress, still unsatisfied and maybe still a little angry, but he won’t blame his wife. They’re in the same boat with Betty, though Veronica’s had time with her to rebuild—he’ll always admire his wife's boldness with people. Also, she could easily complain that he came home late from El Royale, but she knows how much it means to him to channel his frustration in the ring. There is the unspoken fact that she doesn’t think he needs to stick it out in the sheriff’s department. He hears it in every roll of her eyes, every wince, every cluck of the tongue when he tells her about the station dynamics.  _ They’re good guys, Arch. Maybe there would be less tension if…  _

 

But she never says  _ quit _ . Maybe because she believes he’ll make it—third time’s the charm. Maybe because she doesn’t want to admit out loud that she doesn’t. Either way, she loves him enough to let him choose. 

 

Veronica sinks her fingers into his hair, putting the light but steady pressure on his scalp that he loves. “And think about how Betty is feeling. It may only be Jason’s body, but he and Polly disappeared together, and I know the possibilities are…” She trails off for a moment. “I don’t think Betty is feeling optimistic.”

 

Archie shivers involuntarily. “Oh god, I didn’t think.”

 

Veronica continues working her fingers to soothe him, finding his temples and rubbing small circles. “They’ll probably have to dig some more holes out there.” 

 

Archie’s stomach turns, thinking of all the times young Archie and Betty played treasure hunt back there. For the first time, he prays they come up empty handed.

 

 

* * *

  
  
  


Feeling a little speechless after the awkward interaction with Archie, Jughead just gestures lamely towards his old green pickup. Betty’s hair is up in the ponytail, which he senses may be her investigative mode. He pushes down the paranoia that’s been roiling in his stomach all night about bringing her into this, cursing what consequences his lack of discretion may have. 

 

In lieu of words, Jughead extends the coffee cup to Betty, trying and failing not to recall the embarrassment he’d suffered to acquire it.

 

“Your usual, Sheriff?” Evelyn had asked, as excessively earnest as always. He isn’t used to people calling him Sheriff, but it feels more official and dignified than ‘Jughead,’ so he leans into it.

 

“Can I get two, actually?” The impulse is sudden—he has no idea if Betty even drinks coffee.

 

“Oh, sure. One for your partner?”

 

In retrospect, it should have been clear that she was referring to a potential law enforcement colleague. But when she says  _ partner _ , Jughead stutters and stammers his way through the rest of the transaction, trying to stifle the blooming daydreams of the alternative universe where he knows that Betty, his  _ partner, _ takes cream and one sugar in her coffee. As he’s walking out the door, he hopes she really does because he’s gone ahead and mixed it for her. 

 

She takes a sip and quirks an eyebrow. “Have you considered a career as a profiler?”

 

He can’t help the smug smile that creeps across his face or the way this lights up his heart in a way completely unprofessional for the law enforcement version of ‘partner.’  _ It doesn’t mean anything that you guessed her coffee order. Infinite monkeys randomly hitting typewriter keys will eventually produce a copy of Hamlet. Get a grip. _

 

“Is that what you do? You’re more the brains than the brawn?”

 

Betty pauses at the truck, her eyes practically caressing the evergreen paint. “More brawn than you might think,” is all she answers. “This is beautiful.”

 

Jughead shrugs, not wanting to get into the history of the vehicle, and climbs into the driver’s side, tense again. Betty gets in the passenger side, sliding her bag at her feet. They leave the neighborhood in silence until Betty breaks it.

 

“Thank you, really.” She’s sincere, and he realizes it’s because she can read his hesitance, however well Jughead thought he had disguised it. “I assume you can understand my own investment in this case is about more than a hole in my backyard.” She clears her voice, trying to a hide the tremor that creeps in.

 

He does understand the benefit of his review of the Cooper family case files. It is the reason it only took an hour for him to breach all proper procedure, the reason that he’s dressed out of uniform and driving incognito. But Jughead also spent the whole night hungry to know more, to get inside her head, for her to answer the questions she left unanswered at the bar. 

 

Trying to take a page out Betty’s book, or from what he considers his own passable skill as an interviewer, Jughead decides to open the metaphorical door. “I can’t imagine. I have a sister, too. She lives in Chicago now, but I worry a lot. Call her too much. She’s really my only family.”

 

Jughead notices Betty uncurls her fists and grips the edge of the bench seat instead. “I know—” her voice wavers, and she pauses to clear her throat again. Mindlessly, his hand reaches out to cover hers. Her skin is very, very smooth, and he gets a grip just in time to keep himself from stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. He pulls away, trying to make it seem natural. 

 

Betty continues, a little steadier. “It’s stupid to have hope. People who disappeared fifteen years ago don’t show up alive. They show up like Jason did. But she’s all I have left, even just this… idea of her.”

 

If Jellybean had left Riverdale and never returned, Jughead would never have gotten rid of the trailer. Would have slept in heatless winters and scrubbed through the black mold seeping into the bathroom at every crevice. 

 

“That’s why you kept the house,” he thinks aloud.

 

“It’s why I never changed my name.”

 

“So she could find you.”

 

The silence that falls between them feels more poignant than most conversations Jughead has ever endured. He resists his hand’s desire to reach for her again and tries to hold the moment as it is. 

 

Four miles later, Betty speaks, her voice small but firm. “They can dig up my whole yard if they need to.”

  
  
  
  
  


When Jughead pulls into the county laboratory parking lot, a nondescript building on a frontage road, Betty starts rummaging in her bag. He’s spent the last twenty minutes of relative silence trying to come up with a passable story for her to come into the lab with him. He’s not sure how many people tell Betty Cooper that she can’t have something she wants, or whether they’ve survived to tell the tale. So far, he hasn’t dared figure it out, but in absence of a good excuse, the moment may have arrived.

 

“So,” Jughead starts, hoping she’ll understand what’s coming from his tone of voice, but she just keeps sorting through the bag. “I’ve been trying to think of a cover story as to why I’ve brought you with me, but…” 

 

“A better cover story than  _ this is Agent Cooper, she’s with the FBI _ ?” 

 

Jughead opens his mouth to retort, but nothing comes out. Of course, this should have been obvious, but there are too many potential follow up questions.

 

“Besides,” she continues, “they’ve seen me before, so obviously I can’t come in.” Betty finally pulls out whatever she’s been rustling for: a series of small ear pieces and headphones. 

 

“Please tell me that’s not—”

 

“It’s a wire, Jones,” she states, ignoring his protest.

 

“Jesus Christ, you’re  _ such _ a suit.”

 

Betty only rolls her eyes and slides across the bench seat. “Do you have a shirt pocket under your coat? Nevermind, that could get too muffled. We’ll have to tape it straight to your chest.”

 

She’s so clinical and matter of fact that Jughead feels tempted to laugh, despite his fear of swiftly losing control of the situation. He should protest, or at least think of something else, something that’s his idea. 

 

“Don’t you have some kind of phone bugging tech?”

 

“I’m old school. Now do you want me to put my hands up your shirt or can you handle that part?”

 

Jughead momentarily loses the ability to form words, using every ounce of energy not to stammer as he takes the small mic and surgical tape Betty offers. “Where should it go?”

 

Betty presses her lips together and takes a slow breath through her nose. “Um, can I just point?”

 

Jughead feels a strange combination of relief and nervousness that Betty suddenly shifts from bossy to shy. He nods, and she feels from his right collarbone, trailing down a few inches and tracing a soft line with her finger. 

 

“Right here.” Betty murmurs. “But make sure it doesn’t bother you.” Then she scoots away, fiddling with the rest of her equipment. The hairs on Jughead’s arms are all standing on end in the wake of her touch and he fumbles through attaching the mic to his chest. 

 

They talk through an audio test from across the parking lot before Betty sends him in. The thrill of her voice in his ear and the covertness of the otherwise routine aspect of the investigation makes it hard to keep a delighted grin off his face.

 

_ No guns on the premises,  _ reads a sign on the door. Jughead double checks that amongst the distraction that he remembered to take his firearm off his belt.  _ No flirting during a homicide investigation _ is the reminder he actually needs. 

 

Dr. Curdle is waiting in an examination room; Jason’s skeleton is arrayed on a table. Now that he knows who it is, Jughead tries not to look at it, but it’s nearly impossible to avoid. A few other scientists join them as Dr. Curdle starts running their findings.

 

“First, Sheriff Jones, you have not yet informed the family, correct?”

 

_ Not this victim’s,  _ he thinks. Maybe Betty thinks it too, but she stays quiet. “No, not yet. They’ll demand details and I wanted to come prepared.”

 

Dr. Curdle nods, understanding the political pressure of the Blossoms even from an hour outside Riverdale. 

 

“Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to find a conclusive cause of death. Here—” Curdle points to the skull, which Jughead still cannot fathom being the same as the boy framed all over the Bulldog Tavern in various forms, the root of Riverdale’s downward spiral, if you believe the Black Hood theories that Polly Cooper’s disappearance made Hal snap.

 

He used to wonder if a Southside kid had been the one to disappear, would there have been a federal investigation? Would a man have lost his mind? Or would have Riverdale continued to be the town with pep?

 

Dr. Curdle continues, “These indentations indicate blunt force trauma, but not forceful enough to be the cause of death. Depending on the weapon, he may have had some blood loss, but there isn’t a lot of blood in the soil as far as we can tell.”

 

“What does that mean?” Jughead prods, following Betty’s instructions to make the scientists be as clear as possible.

 

Betty’s voice comes over his tiny earpiece, hidden by his old beanie that he dug out of the bottom of his bag, where it spends most days. “He probably thinks Jason was buried alive, he kept asking me about the time my dad did that.”

 

She speaks at the same time as Curdle, so Jughead barely comprehends either of them.

 

“Sorry,  _ Dr. Curdle,  _ could you say that again? I’m a bit… I’ve just never seen a skeleton before.”

 

The scientist nods, objectively considering how that might affect someone. “We are considering a variety of possibilities. Perhaps the victim was only unconscious during burial, and the actual cause of death was asphyxiation from live burial.” Jughead shudders and Betty clicks her tongue. He can’t tell if she’s annoyed or impressed by this assessment. 

 

“We are testing the soil for other compounds to find more evidence of cause of death, as well as a few other non-organic materials we found in the close vicinity of the burial site that could point to a suspect.”

 

Betty is in his ear again, “What compounds are they testing for? Can you make him show you the non-organic materials? And maybe find a discreet way to ask him what he thinks about the Black Hood—” 

 

Jughead hisses, “Please be quiet and let me do my job.”

 

Dr. Curdle looks up from his charts and furrows his brow at Jughead. “Excuse me?”

 

“Sorry, Dr. Curdle, not you. Just um, ah, a call from one of my detectives.” He fakes a fumble with his phone and tucks it back in his pocket. “What compounds, exactly, are you looking for?”

 

Dr. Curdle clears his throat. “Well, as I just said, really anything that would give us a bigger picture. Anyway, this is all we have for now. A team is already back at the scene digging further, as per your request earlier this morning.”

 

“Thank you.” Jughead tries to sound twice as effusive, overcompensating for his earlier indiscretion. Thankfully, Betty remains silent.

 

“We will leave media disclosures up to your department. We suggest that you have your detectives collect evidence from the house as soon as possible to offer Ms. Cooper something in the way of comfort during the investigation. She seemed, to me, to be in a fragile state.” 

 

Jughead grimaces at Dr. Curdle’s words, not believing that Betty had been anything but curt and composed during an interview. Further, he feels upset on Betty’s behalf at the idea of finding some peace when she’s just learned that the boy her sister ran away with was the one found dead of questionable circumstances in her own backyard. 

 

His retort is wry and unravels any remedial efforts of his prior apology. “Frankly, Dr. Curdle, under to the circumstances, I don’t think we have any business making generalizations about Ms. Cooper’s  _ state _ .” 

 

Betty sighs over the wire and Dr. Curdle retreats with a curt goodbye. Truthfully, he doesn’t know what emboldened him to say any of that, but he can’t say he regrets it. 

  
  
  
  
  


Opening the door to the truck, Betty greets him with an unreadable expression. Jughead doesn’t look at her as he pulls the hat off and reaches down his collar to rip the mic off, not wanting to do something foolish, like hide his embarrassment for having defended her by getting mean. 

 

“Well, that could have been worse,” she drawls. “I mean, you really Barney Fife-d it in there. I thought it would be a little patronizing to mention that you should  _ never talk back to me over the wire  _ but apparently we should have done a PowerPoint training.”

 

Jughead can’t believe she’s railing into him right after he spoke up for her, even though he simultaneously knows she didn’t ask for any of it. “I’m sorry, but  _ Barney Fife _ ? I am the goddamn Andy Taylor, thank you very much!”

 

“That remains to be seen,” Betty quips, but the corners of her mouth are are resisting a full-blown smile. Jughead takes it as a challenge.

 

“The audacity to call  _ me  _ a Barney when I employ Archie Andrews?” Jughead pauses for dramatic effect. “One time, Archie let a guy off the hook for speeding thirty miles over the limit because he liked the song he was playing on the radio. Didn’t even run his  _ license _ . Turns out the guy was driving a stolen car and wanted for serial robberies.”

 

Betty squashes a grin like she’s trying to win a contest for not laughing, but he takes it as a victory. He admires that perhaps she doesn’t want to be guilty of laughing at her friend.

 

“Anyway,” he adds, “I was half convinced you were going to barge in guns blazing and take the investigation out of my hands. So, thank you.” Jughead hopes this doesn’t come off as laying it on thick, but he also doesn’t want Betty to think he’s unaware of her power in their situation. Also, the more grateful he is, the less likely she is to actually call in the Feds to take over.

 

Betty rolls her eyes. “I already told you, I’m not really a field agent.”

 

They leave the parking lot, starting the journey back to Riverdale. Even though he knows this is far from the last he’ll see of Betty Cooper, even though Sweet Pea and Mad Dog will be directing a purge of whatever didn’t get collected by evidence after the Black Hood investigation, Jughead wants to hold onto these moments. He wants to ask more questions, if she’ll entertain it. Even if she won’t, he likes the quiet with her. Already, Betty feels like someone who knows him, even if there’s a world more things he knows about her than she knows about him. 

 

Jughead turns on the radio with the volume low, some slow, folksy song that fits with the sun’s golden glance over the intermittent fields and forest that stretches alongside the interstate. 

 

“I didn’t think about the media.” Betty offers this like a confession.

 

Truthfully, it was the very last thing on Jughead’s mind, too, but mostly because he wanted to prolong that fiasco as long as possible. “We’ll keep things under wraps until there are more details to share. Cause of death, suspects, that kind of thing. I mean…” Jughead stammers, catching himself explaining a process she’s certainly familiar with. “You know.”

 

“Keep it even from Cheryl?” Betty sounds conflicted. Of course, she  _ would _ be thinking about the shoe on other feet because she would want to know. But, he realizes, she doesn’t understand the full weight of what they’re dealing with. As much teasing as she can dish out about botching this investigation, Jughead still understands their context better. 

 

“Betty,  _ especially  _ from Cheryl Blossom. She’s the mayor of Riverdale.”

 

 

* * *

  
  
  


Veronica loves Archie, but sometimes being a wife is existentially grating. Most men, even  _ her  _ man, who she thinks is the very best of them all, have the emotional regulation capacity of a teaspoon. And yet, she thinks as she whisks eggs for her lovely but annoying husband’s pity breakfast, women are the ones stereotyped as “overly emotional.” 

 

Of course, she’s not just inconvenienced—she truly regrets not telling Archie about the Jason news. Everything had just happened so rapidly: one minute, she and Betty been fucking around and casually re-inventing the rules of pool to suit their talents, despite the agonized looks some ex-Bulldogs we shooting at them. Veronica felt giddy with laughter despite the fact that she’d only had one drink (before realizing that, due to Schrodinger's pregnancy, she should cap it there), high on the feeling of finding her best friend could still be her best friend, even after all this time. The next minute, Betty excused herself to the bathroom, and when Veronica went to check on her, she found Betty half-hyperventilating, half-sobbing against the sink. In five minutes spanned the best and the most heart-wrenching moments of having Betty back—their new, bright memories and the oldest, darkest ones. 

 

In light of this, Veronica’s sympathies with Archie feel limited. 

 

Over omelettes, she assures Archie that he will have plenty of time to rebuild his bond with Betty; clearly Betty isn’t dashing out of town anytime soon. She coaches him over and over through what he’ll say to Jughead about the situation; a firm but non-confrontational statement about how he would like to be treated as a professional. Then, when Mad Dog and Sweet Pea show up next door to start collecting evidence, Veronica sends him off with a kiss and a tender and subtle ‘buck up’ pat on the shoulders. 

 

Washing and drying the egg pan, Veronica lets her own emotions unfold. More than ever, she wanted to yell at Archie to quit this job that makes him feel like shit. For the first time since the envelope arrived, Veronica was tempted to stomp upstairs and rip open her Bar results on the off chance that they would make Archie consider leaving, that they don’t need the money anymore. 

 

Of course, it would be more complicated than just that. Archie does like his work, or the idea of it, at least. And though she was tempted, Veronica didn’t even take a hint of a step towards the stairs. Maybe because the pregnancy test box would still sit there, taunting her with  _ five more days until I determine your fate. _

 

Gathering her bag for work, Veronica shoves down her next thought, which is about Jason Blossom. It’s wrong, she  _ knows  _ it’s wrong, and if she’s going to go to work and interact with Cheryl, she will need a way to hide it. But below the shock and the queasy confirmation that Polly met a similar fate, is a horrible emotion of relief. 

 

Not that Veronica ever  _ knew  _ Jason. But she knew his type all too well. However he had felt about Polly, however torturous it probably was to grow up in the haunted halls of Thornhill, Veronica always found it off-putting that the whole town idolized a teenage boy who was, as much or more than an average rich white 17-year-old, a jerk. The type of boy Veronica knew all too many iterations of within the upper crust of the Upper East side. If a surprise new Black Hood victim was to turn up, this is one she will lose little sleep over.

 

As if summoned, Veronica’s phone buzzes with Cheryl’s name. She’s not even close to running late, but even so, she knows that it can’t be good news. 

 

“What’s up, Cheryl?”

 

The line is silent for a moment and Veronica rolls her eyes, adding, “I’m sorry. Hello, Mayor Blossom.”

 

Sometimes she and Cheryl seem closer to friends than simply cordial professionals, but every so often, something happens that sets Cheryl at odds with the world, and Veronica often bears the abuse. Frankly, Veronica’s used to the tactic; she was raised on it.

 

“Can I get an update on this whole Archie and the skeleton situation? I’m getting press calls every twenty minutes. The  _ Times  _ left a message this morning. And Sheriff Jones isn’t answering.”

 

This was the incessant dynamic of Riverdale government: Cheryl identifying fires and Veronica putting them out—often through means far above her pay grade. But Veronica knows the Lodge value of keeping your potential adversaries happy. Now she simply approaches it in a decidedly more Andrews-ian way. Kill Cheryl with kindness. 

 

After all, Cheryl isn’t a bad mayor. She’s more of an autocrat than a figurehead, which Riverdale knows isn’t the best situation for a small town, but Cheryl has also been strict about mixing business and politics, and overall, favors the development of the Southside (though Veronica suspects that has more to do with Cheryl’s fiancee, Toni Topaz, than a sense of justice). 

 

Veronica gets an idea. “Well, the sheriff’s department is collecting evidence next door as we speak. So, I can try to find out something useful, but I’ll definitely be late to work.”

 

Cheryl takes the bait immediately. “Oh, don’t worry about coming in. I’d rather have your eyes and ears infiltrating. Report back to me on the hour. Texts are fine, I have meetings.”

 

Hanging up, Veronica sighs with relief. Of course, she’ll have to poke her head over at some point to give Cheryl just enough to keep her satisfied.  But now she can do a few loads of laundry, finish filing their taxes, go to the grocery store. Though only a day has passed since the unearthing, a million small things have crumbled around them, and she yearns to restore a sense of control. 

 

Yet despite her best intentions, Veronica makes it through sorting one load of laundry and composing half of a grocery list before her thoughts start to spiral back to the unfolding investigation. Back to Betty, who Veronica still needed to initiate an official apology conversation with. Last night at the Tavern, even post-breakdown, had felt like as effortless as the old days, but Veronica has never been one to back-burner confrontation, even and especially when she’s the one who needs to compensate for years of silence. 

 

Then there was the subtle yet burning question about whatever she witnessed between Jughead and Betty. Whatever their little morning road trip was motivated by. With time and age, Veronica likes to think that she has gained a little more tact than exhibited in her high school missions to Find Betty A Boyfriend. She’d gone on a date with Reggie Mantle just to talk him into actually asking out Betty—both of them were pissed with her when that backfired. Reggie couldn’t believe he’d so grievously “betrayed his brand.” Betty’s complaint wasn’t all too different: “V, maybe  _ ask _  me if I want to date the meathead I’ve known since preschool before enlisting him to publicly embarrass us both? And… please know that I’m not really interested in anybody that arrogant.” 

 

Trev Brown had been more successful, but someone told Betty that Veronica paid him to ask her to prom—untrue, though it had been heavily suggested, and the fact that Betty had believed it for a minute told an ugly truth about her tendency to meddle. Of course, Betty didn’t need help at getting attention; she’d just always been ‘lil Coop,’ Polly Cooper’s sister. Then she was Black Hood’s daughter. Then she was gone.

 

Regardless, Veronica is itching to suss out how many sparks are flying between Betty and Jughead.

 

_ An apology dinner.  _ The apology part would have to come prior to inviting Jughead, Veronica justifies, reaching into the cupboard for a cookbook. She starts flipping pages to gain ideas, scribbling down ingredients as she flags pages. 

 

Veronica knows that Betty isn’t the same person she was ten years ago, even if she and Archie missed those developments. But Veronica isn’t the same person either, and she might need to prove it. 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Betty scrubs her teeth obsessively with her tongue, realizing just how long she’s gone without brushing. Gulping down the coffee from Jughead (though she’s struggling to get over “Jughead” and still can’t bring herself to say it out loud, plus, addressing him as “Jones” keeps things professional) had helped mask her breath and combat the fact that she’d fallen asleep the night before only after a significant fit of crying and pure exhaustion. When Jughead gestures apologetically about pulling over at a gas station, she heads inside to find a toothbrush.

 

The cashier is watching the morning news a little too loudly. Scanning the hygiene product shelf, she hears the words ‘disappearance of a teenage girl’ and freezes for a moment.  _ We just talked about this. The media doesn’t know _ . Truthfully, Betty is a bit relieved to have some time to prepare for the onslaught. She’s used to questions about the Black Hood; she’s gotten several requests to contribute to books, radio programs, even a documentary series about her father, all which she politely but firmly declines, citing the security profile of her job if they’re extra pushy. 

 

But she’s not used to talking about Polly. It was all pretty unfair to Polly’s life that even during the disappearance, most of the attention fell around Jason. But he was the wealthy boy and Polly always tagged as “the girlfriend,” as if she weren’t also a daughter, a sister. As if she wasn't equally gone. Recently, before coming back to Riverdale, Betty felt like Polly was faded even from her memories. Everything had been replaced with the disappearance, with daily or weekly searches to the missing persons database. After yesterday's dream, Betty hoped that maybe the memories would come back, but now, she knows it will all be swallowed again. There will be a new round of true crime novels, documentaries. 

 

Returning with her overpriced toothbrush and receipt stuffed in her coat pocket, she finds Jughead cleaning the windshield of the truck. He’d shaken her off earlier when she asked about it; he didn’t seem like much of a gearhead. Still, he had to have  _ some _ appreciation if he maintained a classic Ford with such a nice paint job and an engine that sounded like it was well-cared for. Betty opens and closes her mouth twice in effort to ask about it, stopping herself each time because she doesn’t want to sound like she’s trying to prove something about her own knowledge of cars. 

 

“This is a really beautiful truck,” she manages on the third try, even though it’s exactly what she said in the Andrews’ driveway. It’s been a long time since she’s had to make conversation with strangers about anything other than ultra-violent criminals. 

 

Jughead doesn’t look up from swiping his card at the gas pump. “It was my dad’s. I don’t really know anything about it. My friend Sweet Pea really helps with the upkeep.”

 

She wants to know more about his family, but as far as she can tell, he responds better when he shares of his own volition. “What year is it?”

 

He shrugs again. “Late 70s, but I think my dad had it restored a while back. He was obsessed with this thing. He was usually obsessive about… the wrong things.” Betty doesn’t really think that a car is wrong to obsess about, but she also doesn’t have time for anything like that. There was a reason she replaced the Volvo with the exact same make and model.

 

Jughead looks flustered with the gas nozzle, and Betty thinks he’s closing up, closing off, but after starting the pump, he looks up and meets her gaze. A warmth creeps up her neck, just like when he’d covered her hand earlier. His expression twitches—guilt, she thinks. Maybe a realization that he knows the full ugly history of her own family.

 

“My dad was underemployed for a long time, an alcoholic. So when Hiram Lodge rolled into town, he hired himself out as a servant to the highest bidder.” 

 

His voice is caustic, harsh in a way that throws Betty for a moment. “Despite the fact that Hiram was hell-bent on destroying the Southside, my dad jumped right into his pocket and served as the Riverdale sheriff after Tom Keller was ousted, you know, after the Black Hood.”

 

The last time she saw Tom Keller was her mother’s funeral. Though the Betty has gotten the worst of the Black Hood out of anyone, she never blamed Tom. Now more than ever, she knows that it’s not the role of a small town sheriff to hunt a serial killer; Betty had figured that out by training to do that exact thing, to predict the unpredictable. She’s almost distracted by thinking about the Kellers, wondering where Kevin ended up, when Jughead’s words snag on a sharp corner of her mind.

 

“Your dad was the sheriff?” Betty is surprised in the same way she would have been shocked if the town elected another Lodge into the mayoral office—even if she’s still reeling from the news of Cheryl Blossom’s fully realized dream of ruling Riverdale. 

 

“Until he went to jail with the Lodges.” He must read her surprise correctly, because he adds, “But that only happened because I decided to testify against him. He got me a job in the sheriff’s department after I graduated. That’s why people trusted me to run.”

 

Betty’s mind flashes to her own father’s trial, the ugly carpet in the courtroom, the sweat on the prosecutor’s brow as she calmly asked Betty to recount the events of the night she found mother murdered by her father in their living room.  _ I am okay,  _ she reminds herself.  _ Horrible things have happened to me. I did not deserve them. But I am okay. _

 

“I get that,” Betty finds herself saying, trying to bring herself back. “They don’t really let agents with less than a decade of experience on the Behavioral Analysis Unit. I was an exception because my reputation preceded me.” Or she _had_ to be exceptional because of her name; they had to know she wasn’t expecting to get patted on the head. If people were going to talk about her, give them a  _ good _ reason.

 

It’s Jughead’s turn to be surprised. “The… serial killer unit?”

 

“There’s more than that,” Betty starts, but for her purposes, he’s right. “It started in training, when senior agents started pulling me aside. Recognized I had, you know, the life experience. The motivation.”  _ Motivation  _ might be an understatement. There was only, in Betty’s mind at the time, one way to atone for the fact that she didn’t solve her father’s crimes until too late. She’d been ravenous to get placed on the BAU.   

 

“Some people judged me for it, thought I was getting special treatment as a celebrity victim or something. All I’m saying is… I appreciate you telling me. I would never think of you differently because of who your father is.”

 

The gas pump thunks to announce that the truck has refueled. 

 

“Of course.” Jughead’s eyes look extra blue, and Betty realizes that she’s traveled a lot closer to him over the course of her monologue; there’s only a few feet between them. She has to look up to keep eye contact. She’s hyper aware of how tall he is, and the way he’s looking at her makes her lose feeling in her extremities. Somehow, the idea of his arms wrapping around her in the middle of a gas station seems more than welcome, and if she didn’t have the most disgusting breath of her entire life— 

 

Jughead’s phone rings. “Shit. Uh, I mean, sorry.” He grimaces regretfully (or maybe now she’s not reading him, just projecting) and answers. “Hey, P. I’m about fifteen minutes away.”

 

Betty takes the opportunity to get back in the truck, coaching herself to breathe off whatever that moment might have been if his phone wasn’t always interrupting, like the night before. To, above all else, not think about what she might have wanted to happen if there was no call. If the volume was off. If he left it on the bench seat. To remind herself that it was best not to complicate things, even though she hasn’t felt her heart pound quite like this ever before.

  
  
  
  
  


 

Even with ten miles of scenic highway to distract herself, Betty feels destabilized by whatever happened—or didn’t happen—at the gas station. Even when she first met her previous boyfriend of two years, Adam, back during training at Quantico, she’d never felt  _ incapacitated  _ the way she does when she looks at Jughead’s hands gripping the steering wheel. Then again, she broke up with Adam when, after almost two years, he’d been brave enough to do what he knew she feared most: tell her  _ I love you _ . That relationship wasn’t a good barometer, but it was pretty much the only barometer Betty has for reference. Serial killers—she has dozens. Significant others? Two, if she counts the summer in high school of sort-of dating Trev Brown before Black Hood started calling and told her that if she didn’t break up with him, he’d be the next to die.

 

That was a significant factor in her romantic psyche, or at least her therapist thinks so. Betty tucks it into the most secluded part of her mind and tries not to dig out the worst question of all:  _ What if I’m like him? What if I’m incapable of love?  _ Of course, she knows objectively, diagnostically, that she is not psychopathic. That she has been loved her entire life, even if that life was broken. She is not broken, at least, not until she felt with more certainty than ever before, that Polly is gone. Betty is the last Cooper.

 

Maybe this is why, when Jughead pulls up in front of her house and she sees the Riverdale PD taking boxes into evidence, Betty feels herself start to slide into a spiral, just like she had the night before at the Tavern. She needs to take a breath, needs to call her therapist, needs to dig her nails into her palms, needs things to just go back where they came from: Jason’s skeleton into the ground, Archie back into his house, her car back down the driveway and hurtling back to Virginia where Betty can fix things instead of watching them devolve into chaos.

 

“Betty? Betty.” Jughead places a hand on her back, and even though it feels like she’s not even inside her own body, it helps. She feels air flood her lungs. “You’re okay,” he repeats, slowly, calmly. His voice sounds far away but its effect is still grounding. He doesn’t sound scared, or even concerned; it’s like he’s done this before. Like he knows what to do.

 

It takes another minute, but Betty is able to stop gasping, feeling a little victorious that she avoided tears. She feels Jughead’s body heat and it’s nice—she doesn’t want him to move. 

 

“I can’t go in there right now.” 

 

He just rubs her back in a slow circle. “That’s okay. Can I… Do you want to go somewhere?”

 

“Literally anywhere else.”

 

“Okay.” Betty mourns the loss of his closeness as he slides back onto the drivers side and turns the key. For a second, she considers sliding over to bridge the gap again, but the thought fills her with equal measures of terror and desire, so she stays rooted, gripping the seat.

 

They drive back across town, the way she’d driven with Veronica yesterday. Passing the stretch of refurbished Southside, she wonders how he sees the development of his side of town. She wants to ask, but he turns onto a block full of warehouses and realizes she truly just told a practical stranger to take her to an undisclosed location. 

 

Looking to Jughead with a puzzled expression, he clears his throat. “Sometimes, when I need some space, I go here.” He gestures to the parking lot they are turning into. “It’s a gun range. I know you’re not a field agent, or whatever…” 

 

He trails off, and Betty reads it as nerves, maybe even embarrassment, and she’s too amused to jump in to correct him. To explain that she’s still definitely more trained in how to wield a gun than all of the sheriff’s department combined or that she’s literally carrying a .22 pistol in her bag. Of course, it seems wrong to deceive him after he talked her through an anxiety attack like it was nothing and neither shrank away nor tried to pry. But he’s also stumbling over his words with such gentle naivete, so all she says is, “I’m game.”

 

They check in—it’s a small range with only a few kinds of guns so Betty decides to lean into the clueless act. She’s not really insulted by Jughead’s assumptions; he’s so genuine and most of the time, she reads him as entirely intimidated by her. When Jughead asks for her preference for a firearm, she all but batts her eyes and responds with a coy, “I’ll just use whatever you’re using.”

 

Though it’s a little absurd to pay for a rental when she has a pistol in the car, she’s come too far to backpedal. Jughead chooses a window and Betty sets up next to him, putting on her safety gear a fraction slower than usual, trying not to laugh but altogether pleased that she’s managed to cheer herself up so quickly. 

 

Jughead takes a few shots while Betty examines the gun. It’s not as nice as her own model and nowhere near the quality of the government agency grade firearms she’s held before, but she’ll certainly be able to show off enough to razz Jughead. 

 

Jughead is a decent shot, though Betty can tell he’s practiced a lot. Sloppy form, certainly, even if he’s hitting his targets. Sloppy or not, a wavy strand of hair falls down his forehead and Betty can hardly breathe. Realizing that she’s watching, Jughead takes one more shot and sets his gun on safety.

 

“So, uh, let’s see your stance,” he prompts, clearly unsure of how far he should tread. Betty decides there is no point in throwing him a softball at this point, so she stands with knees and elbows locked.

 

“Okay, okay.” She feels his chest graze her back as he comes to stand behind her and stifles the involuntary urge to shiver. “Relax a little.”

 

Betty takes a deep breath, rolling her shoulders back so they graze his chest behind her and ignoring the way her stomach flips. Jughead reaches his arms around hers and Betty tenses, but solely to keep herself from dissolving into him. 

 

“Tense, but not stressed. It’ll help with the recoil.” Betty wishes, for the first time ever, that she wasn’t actually an FBI agent. That she could go on a date with her small town sheriff where he shows her how to shoot a gun. Not to patronize her, of course, but because she really wants to learn. 

 

“Same thing with your legs.” His hand comes down to ghost her hip and Betty bites her lip.  _ You’ve played yourself, Cooper.  _

 

She doesn’t even really hear what he says about aim—she may not even have let him finish before she fires a round into the target: head, heart, both shoulders, dick. 

 

When Betty chances a look back at Jughead, his mouth is hanging open. She’s resisting twelve different retorts, but then he starts laughing, and Betty forgets everything but how lovely it is to watch him laugh when she made it happen. 

 

“I guess the student was always the teacher, huh?” he manages, a deep shade of pink. He’s intimidated again, she notes. 

 

Betty quirks an eyebrow. “Jones, the road is long, and you have much to learn.”

  
  
  
  
  


Jughead suggests stopping at the Tavern while they wait for signal clearance from the forensic crew. They sit at a table, and thankfully, Reggie is nowhere in sight. She’s not ready to explain what she’s doing with the sheriff (again). The pink haired bartender approaches them with only one menu, which she hands to Betty.

 

“So, Jug, are you going to introduce me this time?” She gives him a side eye, and Betty tries to hide her smile at the nickname, which somehow sounds entirely different than the full thing, softer, and Betty wonders what i t would sound like in her own mouth.

 

“Toni, this is Betty. She’s…” He pauses, a silent ask for permission. 

 

“Nice to meet you, Toni.” Betty takes over, extending a hand, which Toni takes with a fraction of hesitation. “I grew up in Riverdale.”

 

“So did I,” she responds, and Betty’s smile falters at her slightly icy tone.

 

They order, or at least Betty does. Jughead just nods when Toni raises her eyebrows.

 

“How often do you come here?” she probes, more for something to say.

 

“It’s the only bar or place to get a burger since Pop’s is gone. Plus… I came here a lot even before it was the Tavern. It’s not like Southside kids could walk into Pop’s before all the Northside kids went home for curfew.” He doesn’t sound like he’s making a jab, but after Toni’s coolness, Betty feels uncomfortable.

 

“I can’t believe I never saw you there,” she offers, however empty it sounds. 

 

Jughead gives her a look like she can’t be serious. “Of course you can. Besides, don’t assume we  _ always _ had it worse off. Pop gave me free onion rings after 3 AM.”

 

Betty scoffs. “You stayed out that late in  _ high school _ ? Are you trying to win back your cool points after what just happened?”

 

Jughead shrugs like a flinch, and Betty feels a little guilty. “That’s where I went after the Wyrm closed and my dad came home wasted. I made sure he didn’t pass out anywhere inconvenient.” He shifts a little in his seat, and Betty knows she needs to change the subject, but he beats her to it.

 

“So, can you get all the secret talents out on the table? Just so I don’t try to like, tutor you in something again like a complete asshole?”

 

She smiles, softly. “But what fun would that be?”

 

Jughead leans toward her across the table. “Just one thing, then.”

 

There’s a lot she could tell him; her hacking skills are passable. She’s an inventive lock pick and negotiated a braggable number of hostage cases, imprisoned quite a few people that are arguably more despicable than the Black Hood. 

 

“My backflip skills are a little rusty, but maybe they’ll come in handy when I need to escape Archie’s wrath when I get back.”

 

He laughs again, but her view is interrupted by the arrival of a cheeseburger that proceeds to soak up the next 5 minutes of his full attention. 

 

Betty sips her beer and gears up to add something, anything, that might ensure she’ll see him tomorrow. While she’s wormed her way into the investigation thus far, she needs to make sure today wasn’t just a favor. 

 

After inhaling the burger so quickly that Betty can’t imagine he’s even tasted it, Jughead talks while stuffing fries in his mouth, which she finds more endearing than she should. “So, it’s going to take a few more days to get more evidence results, but… I’ll keep you posted. I mean, if you you want. I know this case is more than you ever bargained for.”

 

Betty rolls her eyes. It’s sweet that he thinks she might want a break, but Betty Cooper doesn’t take breaks. “Of course I do. How long is that going to take?”

 

Jughead takes a swig of his beer and shrugs. “A day or two. Maybe three. But… I do need to tell Cheryl, probably tomorrow, just in case there are any media leaks. It could help, maybe, to have someone else come with me who is… affected.”

 

Betty can think of a thousand things she would rather do than help deliver the news of Jason’s death to the Blossoms, but at this point, Betty thinks she might agree to just about anything to keep herself close to the investigation. 

 

Close to him.

 

A few minutes later, Jughead gets a text with the all-clear and settles their tab before Betty can protest. The drive back to the Northside feels too short for all the new feelings bubbling up. They pull up to the Andrews’ and Jughead says, “Well, I can’t say I appreciated the wire or the deception, but… thank you.”

 

Betty can only blame utter delusion for the fact that she responds, “Anytime, Jug.”

 

But his blush rivals her own, and Betty thinks for the first time that maybe he isn’t  _ just  _ intimidated by her. The thought leaves her with an ear-splitting grin that she forgets to wipe off as she walks through the front door and finds Veronica on the couch watching TLC, feet resting on an unfolded basket of laundry.

 

Veronica mutes the TV and bolts upright, eyes widening. “I know that look and I need you to spill.  _ Now. _ ”

  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

\---

to be continued

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> your comments are, as always, immensely appreciated!


	4. evidence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as usual, I'll start off with an apology for how long it's been since I updated! also as usual, I'm insanely grateful for my beta, twin, and hypegurl heartunsettledsoul <3

 

 

_and I'd do anything to make you stay_

_no light, no light_

_tell me what you want me to say_

  
  
  


The sun sets blindingly through the window into the Andrews’ kitchen as Veronica and Betty work in companionable silence, papers sprawled across the island countertop, scribbling down price quotes and crossing off tasks: _exterminator, plumber, cleaner, inspector, contractor._

 

“I forgot about how bright it gets in this kitchen at sunset,” Betty offers as Veronica gets up to fiddle with the blind. “Archie would always make me sit here during dinner so the sun would get in my eyes instead of his.”

 

Veronica rolls her eyes. “Such a gentleman.” She remembers to check her phone—she knows Archie will want to linger with the detectives at the bar after his day of helping out, but she sends out a plea for him to bring home pizza. _Betty and I are sorting out some stuff with the house now that there’s a green light from Jughead. Could use your help! And maybe an extra large supreme?_

 

They’ve been focused on Betty’s house for an hour or so, avoiding Veronica’s other line of questioning about what the hell Betty and the sheriff of Riverdale might have been doing together all day. 

 

She cringes, recalling her demanding tone when Betty walked through the front door, grinning ear to ear. _Spill now._ They weren’t in high school, eating ice cream by the pint under fur blankets at the Pembroke, discussing whether Trev Brown was hinting to Betty that he wanted to go to second base, or her best friend cringing when Veronica got a little too detailed about her and Archie’s burgeoning sex life. 

 

And then Betty shrank into herself, protecting whatever feeling had produced her smile. “It’s just been a nice day,” Betty replied, her voice like icing on a cake, all soprano.

 

 _You’re not the only human bullshit detector, B._ But Veronica had to let it go—they aren’t that kind of friends anymore. Or yet. There have been flashes; sharing clothes, trading confidences, tears and hugs. But Veronica knows they both still have plenty of ground to cover and secrets unspoken, and for whatever reason, Jughead Jones is something Betty wants to keep from her. So instead, they get to business on the Cooper house.

 

Betty confirms a time with a plumber for Tuesday while Veronica recenters, the animal of an apology she’s been thinking about all afternoon clawing at the back of her throat. When Betty hangs up, Veronica hears herself blurt, “You can stay here as long as you need, you know. No rush. We’re happy to have you, as long as you’re comfortable.”

 

Betty takes a sip of water, letting the awkwardness sit heavily in the air. Last night had felt seamless, but now she’d gone and put the elephant back on the table—or whatever the damn phrase was.  

 

“Thank _you_ , V. I really appreciate it,” Betty reassures in the soft, lilting way that Veronica imagines a mother should sound when she comforts her children—not that either of them had mothers well-versed in such a practice.

 

Veronica feels a little lighter every time Betty uses her old nickname, and it helps with the next part. “Obviously there has been no good moment to say this, with everything going on, but I am sorry for the way we’ve fallen out of touch. I feel sick about it, really. Not just because you’re here. I’ve felt that way for years. And I know the only thing that would have made it better is actually trying to reach out and find you—”

 

Betty reaches across the island and touches Veronica’s arm. “Thank you, really, but I promise I haven’t held it against you. I already told you, I didn’t want to be found. I had no idea where you were, even though I could have found your contact information in a second. But you know what?”

 

Betty’s voice gets a little thick, and Veronica finds her eyes pricking with tears. 

 

“When I opened the door and saw you standing there, I was relieved. I couldn’t do any of this—” she gestures to the papers on the table, the police tape in both of their backyards, “without you and Archie just being right here. I mean… I’m the one who left you, V.”

 

Triggered by Betty’s words, Veronica remembers calling the therapeutic recovery center and the nurse telling Betty was tired, to try back later. Of putting up their photos up in her dorm at Columbia, pointing them out as her boyfriend and best friend to anyone who so much as glanced at the wall, even though Betty’s cell number had been disconnected and Archie had bailed on several weekend visits in a row. The next year when she moved into her new sophomore dorm, she kept the photos in a box.

 

Veronica swoops Betty into a tight hug. She doesn’t let go for a full minute, even though she hears the engine of Archie’s truck turn up the driveway. The sliver of doubt about what they mean to each other stops pricking her.  

 

Betty goes to the front door to greet Archie. Veronica hangs back, letting them work out the awkwardness from the morning on their own terms. Her heart swells with the snippets of apologies she hears while she dials another number for a cleaner who has Sunday hours—they’ve been trying to find one with a cancellation. 

 

Archie and Betty carry in the pizza, which Archie plops down on the counter as Betty searches the cabinets for plates and side-eyes Archie for already digging in. Some things never change, and as she negotiates an early arrival for the cleaners, Veronica can’t help hoping that this could be their new normal.

  
  
  
  


Sunday, after the cleaners come and go, Archie leads them through a conference call with Fangs about the results of the building inspection, which Veronica zones out for most of—the nitty gritty of renovations isn’t her particular interest or forte. She’ll probably help decorate and stage the house; god knows they’ll need to go the extra mile to compensate for the house’s reputation. 

 

Instead, Veronica continues observing the dance between Betty and her phone that’s been going all day long—sometimes tapping it awake in fifteen second intervals, sometimes emphatically leaving it across the room or the house, always sulking back as she retrieves it. 

 

Veronica feels like the profiler, now. Betty is clearly waiting to hear from someone, and Veronica has a very strong inkling that it’s Jughead. When Fangs showed up after the cleaners and introduced himself, Archie launched into the litany of Riverdale connections and Veronica didn’t miss the way Betty’s eyes blinked at double speed at the mention of _Sheriff Jones’ high school bud._

 

Betty doesn’t speak much on the call except for when Fangs asks her directly if she’s thought about the design very much, and whether she’s ready to go right ahead with any demolition.

 

“We haven’t gotten into the busiest time of the year since it’s only just started to thaw, so the sooner we can start, the better, even if it’s just the demo work.”

 

Betty taps her phone again, this time to seemingly write something down. “I do, actually. Nothing detailed yet, but I do want a lot of layout changes on the main level, especially. I know it might be too difficult to move things because of plumbing and wiring and all that, but I don’t want the inside to be very recognizable.”

 

Veronica doesn’t miss the slight quiver in Betty’s voice and places her palm on Betty’s back for just a moment. 

 

“Actually, I was wondering if you have any thoughts on the exterior, Ms. Cooper.”

 

“Betty, please, Mr. Fogarty.”

 

“Well, then Fangs to you, Betty.” 

 

Veronica rolls her eyes. _Stupid fucking nicknames,_ she mouths and Betty manages a half-grin.

 

“Actually, Fangs, I would prefer to keep the exterior pretty similar.”

 

There is a pause before he hedges, “I only wanted to suggest, given the need for curb appeal and given the history…”

 

“I understand. We can talk about other options later. For now, I’m ready to start main level demo tomorrow and discuss what I’m thinking in more detail.”

 

Archie ends the call, chirping about seeing each other early in the morning. Warmth blooms in her chest at the excited look on her husband’s face, charged up with the anticipation of a new project. She can’t remember the last time she’s seen him like this, so energized and self-assured. 

 

They broached the topic of Archie continuing on with Andrew Construction just after started dating again, trying to conceive of a life in Riverdale. With all the medical and legal bills in the following months, there hadn’t been much left to hold onto. The remainder of the company assets fell to the wayside and the equipment sat collecting rust. Then Fangs started fixing up abandoned properties on the Southside, using the loopholes in squatters rights to take back land foreclosed upon by the state, previously owned by Hiram Lodge. It was a quick decision to liquidate the assets of Andrews Construction and sell to Fangs, giving him the materials and legitimacy to start his own business. Archie thought of it as passing the legacy to someone who would carry it well, but for Veronica, it felt more like reparations for the Southside in the wake of the violence and extortion of her parents. 

 

It’s too late, nor their place, to take that back. Still, Veronica senses this project will be good for Archie, and vows to encourage this excitement, wherever it’s rooted.

 

As soon as Archie leaves the room, Betty’s eyes dart back to her phone and Veronica can’t stop herself.

 

“For the love of god, Betty, would you please just text the man already?”

 

Betty looks up, faux innocent, but her expression breaks almost immediately into a _god I’m pathetic_ cringe. But even before Veronica can launch into her prepared consultation, Betty smacks a hand over her face and tries to wipe the look away.

 

“It’s nothing. We—Jones was going to talk to Cheryl today, and I thought we had agreed that I would come. Since I’m helping with the investigation and everything. It’s not a big deal. Clearly, he decided it’s probably not a good idea to have someone like me so involved.”

 

Veronica wants to roll her eyes. The way Betty said _‘we’_ told her everything she needs to know, so she swipes Betty’s phone from across the counter.

 

“Oh my god, V, don’t do this. We aren’t in fucking high school! Hey! Stop!” Betty swats at her but Veronica steps out of her range.

 

“You’re a pretty terrible FBI agent, leaving your phone without a password?” she teases, but holds her hands up in a momentary surrender. “Look, I’ll just write a simple text. You don’t have to send it.”

 

Betty’s eyes narrow, and Veronica recalls the same ice cream fueled sleepovers where she did this very thing, coaching Betty over her shoulder about what to say to Trev. Veronica had tried to do the same with her college roommate, Ginger, but she mostly just rejected Veronica’s advice and then pouted about her romantic failures.

 

Veronica taps out a message and passes the phone back to Betty, unable to resist a smug expression. Betty scans the text ( _What’s the status on informing Cheryl?)_ and pauses before pressing send, recoiling from the device like it might bite her. There is a twinge in Veronica’s gut that hopes Betty isn’t actually angry. Holding back all day—or since yesterday afternoon, really, had grown too excruciating. Veronica knows her need to get involved in anything that’s Not Her Business is not the most glowing attribute of her personality, but the grin on Betty’s face had told Veronica everything she needed; her friend was happy, or at least she could be.  

 

“I know I am overreacting, I just… I don’t do… whatever _this_ is.” Betty sighs, grabbing the phone again and tucking it on top of the refrigerator.

 

“It’s okay, B. I overstepped. Sue me, but I’m kind of dying to know exactly what _this_ is.” 

 

“ _This_ is frankly idiotic because it’s probably nothing at all. I’m not exactly someone who has flirty banter with young sheriffs who have a stupidly nice face and beautiful hair and a mint-condition 1976 F100 who know how to talk me off a ledge during an anxiety spiral.”

 

Gnawing on her inner cheek, Betty looks both uncomfortable and unburdened. Veronica squashes her smirk at the thought of “flirty banter” between two people as stubborn Betty Cooper and Jughead Jones. 

 

“Trust me, B, that’s nowhere near normal for Jughead either. He’s the epitome of a bachelor—cabin in the woods and all. Most of the time, he’s perched alone at the Bulldog or talking to the three people he’s known since he was in diapers. Riverdale isn’t exactly the crime magnet it once was, but if anything is going on, his only sidekick detectives are absolute pretty-boy buffoons—there’s a reason I’m incredulous that Archie hasn’t passed his exam. I can’t imagine what a brain aneurysm he’s been having with you as a partner.”  

 

Betty’s cheek biting turns from anxiety into holding back a small smile, but Veronica notes that her hands are still a little clenched.  

 

“Maybe that’s just it—I can’t tell the difference between whether he’s intrigued or terrified of me.” Betty’s voice betrays that she’s a little bit of both.

 

Veronica doesn’t stifle her laugh. “Can you blame him if it’s a combination? I mean, I can’t imagine you’ve been going easy on him.” 

 

Betty flushes a deep pink and Veronica wants to kick and scream for details but manages to reign herself in. If she can pull off dinner tomorrow night, she might be able to see for herself, but antagonizing Betty now could botch that plan. 

 

“It’s already a rather unprofessional situation. It’s best not to… push things overboard.” Betty manages, the cringe returning. 

 

Veronica has one thousand more questions, but she files the interrogation away for later, not wanting to tire the topic out too quickly and make Betty shut down. 

 

“Then let’s talk about something else. Like, this giant remodel of the house you’ve suddenly decided to do?” Veronica walks to the fridge and removes a bottle of Chardonnay that has remained too conspicuously ignored for the past few weeks. She pulls it out, gesturing for Betty to grab glasses from the cabinet, then pours Betty’s first to distract from the mere half inch dribble in her own glass. Veronica had already done enough panic internet searching to ensure that her one drink at the Bulldog wouldn’t affect a potential baby, but she needs to be more careful for the next couple of days.

 

Betty grabs the bottle. “Let’s go next door. I need the distraction.”

  
  
  
  


Veronica certainly didn’t spend as much time at the Cooper house as they did at the Pembroke—such was the life of the spoiled rich girl. Everything revolves around _your_ space, _your_ rules and resources. You assume that since you have more, you’ll have better. 

 

Of course, the past five years have taught her how wrong she’d been. In the weeks after Fred’s passing, she caught herself wishing she’d spent more nights, even back in high school, sitting with him on the porch or grilling in the backyard. While Archie grieved on an overdose of memories, Veronica starved for a deeper backlog.

 

When her parents were indicted, tried, and sentenced, Veronica thought she understood a sliver of loss, of what she held Betty’s hollow shell of a body through. But losing Fred made her realize that it was embarrassing to compare them; no one feels shame when they lose a parent. 

 

Except, perhaps, the woman standing next to her, in the house she does not wish to have more memories of, a grief she knows she will never come close to understanding.

Standing in the Cooper’s living room, Veronica remembers pushing through the throng of reporters with Hermione, who stayed at the door and waited for Mary, terrified of the scene within. 

The detectives had rushed her upstairs—CSI was still sampling and photographing. Veronica tried not to look; not wanting the scar of the scene in her memory, but as she turned up the stairs, she realized that scar would be Betty’s deepest wound; she should take a glimpse, too, to share the weight. 

Now, looking at the scrubbed living room, she can still remember the outline of Alice’s blood on the hardwood. Closing her eyes, Veronica sees Betty on the floor of her bedroom: Archie perched on the edge of the bubble-gum pink comforter, relieved when Veronica poked her head inside, knelt down and scooped Betty into her arms. She can hear Betty’s whisper-sob: _It’s my fault. I was too late._

Tucking the memory back, Veronica clears her throat. “It wasn’t your fault.” 

Of course, she knows Betty has heard this probably one million times, even if those words died on Veronica’s 18-year-old tongue. Swathes of psychiatrists have no doubt made Betty repeat that statement like a mantra. Still, when Betty reaches for Veronica’s free hand to squeeze, it feels a little bit like forgiveness. 

Betty clears her throat. “I think my mom would hate if I change anything about this house.”

 

Veronica drains her wine glass, knowing it’s really only a sip, but vowing not to have another. “So of course you have to.” She smiles devilishly at Betty, who cracks a grin out of pure surprise at Veronica’s comment.

 

“God, exactly.” Betty takes a swig of wine. “I haven’t talked about my mom to anyone who actually knew her. People in college and at the Bureau get this panicked look on their face when I’d say anything real about her—like how she snuck into my room and read my diaries all the time, or when she got me that Adderall prescription after I got two Bs in my first semester of high school. Like, god forbid you speak ill of the dead. But like, what if the dead in question threatened to have her daughters fucking _committed_ instead of grounding them?

 

“And then therapist after therapist I would have to go through these trial periods. One time, I told this counselor that the most fucked up thing about me is that I spent most of my life resenting my mom and favoring my dad and it turns out I sided with the wrong kind of crazy.” 

 

“You didn’t _side_ with him.”

 

“I know,” she murmurs apologetically, then abruptly paces into the kitchen. 

 

Veronica follows, more memories sparking when they reach the kitchen; visions of helping Betty pack cupcakes for the River Vixens annual bake sale and elicit late night snacks prepared after Archie inevitably fell asleep during their Saturday night movie. 

 

Golden hour fills the room with an ethereal glow, brightening Betty’s hair. Betty pours a new glass of wine, and Veronica hopes she consumes enough not to notice Veronica’s lack of drink.

 

“I feel like my mom now more than ever, especially as I get older. I’m distrustful, in general. Obsessive, though I’m far more adjusted than her in some ways, because of all the therapy. Very stubborn. Controlling.”

 

Veronica opens her mouth to interject, to remind Betty that Alice used to have Pop Tate call her if Betty or Polly sat alone with a boy in a booth. Or that Alice banned Veronica from the Cooper house one summer when she saw Betty in a bikini Veronica lent her. But something about Betty’s expression tells Veronica that these aren’t the comparisons Betty is trying to make, so she shuts up.

 

“My dad made a big point during the stalking about us being the same. Righteous. Moral. Decisive.” She punctuates the thought with a long drink, and Veronica thinks the wine and having the courage to walk inside the house might have a lot to do with one another.

 

“I spent years trying to prove him wrong by becoming the most direct opposition to his kind. Most of the other bureau recruits my year were terrified of me, but I just worked like an insane person to prove I was the antithesis of him. The person who caught all the people like him. Who picked them apart.” 

 

Veronica shudders, thinking of teenage Betty, passed out over code breaking books, profiling a psychopath on her eighteenth birthday. The Betty leaning against the granite kitchen island still has the same dark circles under her eyes.

 

“So, a few years ago, my therapist got on this whole thing about… who I am beyond what I do. Beyond being an agent. At first, I almost stopped seeing her because I thought it was nonsense but… it helped me realize that I’m nothing like my father, or the other men I’ve helped find. Actually, I’m so much like my mother. I don’t _do_ the things she did, like bully or patronize. But I have the same chip on my shoulder. It’s helped me live through hell.”

 

Veronica can’t bite back her next question. “I think all of that is very true, B. But don’t you think… maybe this is more hell than you need? Being in Riverdale, in this house?”

 

Betty pulls the elastic out of her hair and massages her scalp. “In a strange way, it’s been easier. Here… I _have_ to reckon with who I am. Not just what my job defines me as. Even this case… I can’t take myself out of the equation.” She says this like it might just be dawning on her. 

 

_Maybe that’s why Jughead is such a risk. Betty needs the investigation as much or more as she might want him._

 

“But what about the house?” Veronica doesn’t have to say that she has noticed Betty could barely step foot in here until the police and cleaners stripped it bare of artifacts or dust. Betty looks down at the counter tops like she still can’t wipe away the memories in the marbled granite. Veronica understands the urge to replace them—she’d done the same thing in subtler ways. 

 

“Even if I sell it, it seems deceptive to try to erase its history. For my sake, I think I need it to look completely different in here so that I don’t have to imagine some family playing out the domestic horror film in my head. But I don’t want to change the outside. That seems like a lie.”

 

Veronica turns Betty’s logic around in her mind, but before she can land on a response, Betty’s phone chimes. Their eyes grow wide in tandem.

 

“Is it him?” 

 

Betty flushes, fumbling slightly as she opens the message. Veronica watches the corners of her mouth curl downwards. “Says he’s sorry he didn’t text. Something came up with family.”

 

Veronica bites her bottom lip. She doesn’t know much about Jughead’s family other than his dad is in jail because of Hiram, and his mom is out of the picture, an ex-con as well. 

 

“You could ask Archie about it,” she offers, but Betty is already withdrawing all signs of vulnerability.

 

“It’s fine.”

 

Sensing a possible window, Veronica employs her most innocent grin. “Well, you _could_ always invite him to dinner tomorrow. At our house, of course. Test the waters somewhere… neutral.”

 

Betty narrows her eyes but the corners of her mouth perk up. “You’ve been thinking about this for days, haven’t you.”

 

Veronica scoffs, feigning indignation. “Of course not! It truly _just_ floated into my brain, but if you’re interested, we could take a very distracting trip to buy some groceries…”

 

Resigned, Betty takes the bait. “Okay, but I’m _not_ inviting him. This is your plot, V.”

 

Veronica claps her hands, a gesture familiar and foreign all at once. Trite as it may be, she would suffer any and all the dirt, secrets, and speculation the body of Jason Blossom has brought to Riverdale just to have her best friend back. 

 

 

 

 

* * *

  


Fangs calls Archie around six in the morning—most of his guys can’t come out to start demo until midday, but Betty is antsy to get going.

 

Archie knows the latter piece. He and Betty stayed up until nearly two a.m. in the kitchen, sketching on old rolls of butcher paper of his dad’s they found in a closet, trying to talk her out of fireplace demolition, a main level master bedroom, and a garage conversion.

 

Still, it doesn’t take much to roll out of bed on four hours of sleep—the house project has given him more energy than he’s had in months. It’s not until he greets Fangs and a small crew in the entryway to the Cooper house that he has any regrets. 

 

Of course, he should have known that Fangs would also call Jughead for last minute help. Veronica’s calm but firm coaching about confronting his boss regarding the Jason prediction swirls in his stomach.

 

But as Fangs shows them around to the areas needing the most demo—the kitchen, the bathroom, the fireplace—Jughead hangs to the back, though not in his cold, objective, reserved way. He pulls on pieces of his hair, touching his head like he wishes to find his old hat there but coming up empty. Archie’s anxiety dissolves into concern, and when Fangs assigns places to get started, Archie can’t help thinking that sledgehammering some cabinets off the wall might help Jughead get out of his head. He volunteers them to work on the kitchen.

 

Archie shows Jughead how to find the best spots for leverage and ease in prying the cabinets free from the wall. “We might be able to save these for another project, so try to keep them intact. The base cabinets can go though, and the appliances are pretty much toasted.”

 

Jughead nods, grabs the crowbar, and gets to work. The room echoes with a stilted silence, punctuated with _here, help me grab this_ and _what happens if I fucked this one up?_

 

After Archie rights a severely bent nail, Jughead sighs, “You’re good at this stuff, Arch. I mean, I know it was kind of your old man’s thing.”

 

He’s used to this—comments from both sides of the tracks about how great it is that he’s supporting Southside business by everything he’s done for Fogarty, or conversely about how it’s too bad he sold everything off because the Northside needs work, too. 

 

Jughead must sense the tenor of his silence. “I don’t mean to sound… listen.” He puts down the crowbar with a clatter. “I don’t tell you this enough, but you could do anything you wanted in this town. And I’m lucky to have you as my deputy. I never want you to feel like I don’t support you, and I’m sorry that lately I haven’t followed through on that.”

 

Archie’s grows hot as Jughead rambles with more fervency than usual, but he tries to let the words sink in. After a pause, Jug resumes cabinet demo and Archie finds his bearings. 

 

“I like working at the sheriff’s department a lot. It feels honorable.”

 

Jughead nods, or maybe his whole body does as he yanks another joint from the wall. Archie lets the rest of his thoughts tumble out.

 

“I guess I’ve just wondered if I’m really any good at it. If I’m in it for the right reasons. I don’t know if that makes any sense.”

 

Jughead motions for Archie to catch the other end of the cabinet as he loosens the last joint. They lug the cabinet into the living room, but Jughead doesn’t respond until his back is turned, stalking back to the kitchen.

 

“I think it makes a lot of sense, Arch. I’m the first person to hold myself liable to the shine that badge can give you. I mean, my dad wasn’t Fred Andrews—and I have to bear his name every day on the same fucking nametag. But I like the stability, the control, the responsibility almost like a drug, sometimes.”

 

Jughead won’t meet his eye, and Archie can’t help wondering if maybe something came up again with JB. Before he can form the question, Jughead’s entire tone and stance shift. 

 

“Is it weird for you? Tearing this all of this down?”

 

Archie pauses, looking around. The house is so stripped bare that it’s hard to recognize. The evidence collection had sparked more of his memories: the smell of the old basement couch, the look on Betty’s face when he spilled the popcorn into the crevasses _again_ (she would text him pictures of the stale pieces she pulled out weeks later). 

 

“Kind of. I mean, Betty’s mom wasn’t my biggest fan. Or anyone’s, really. She was…” Archie trails off, always feeling a punch of guilt talking about Alice. She wasn’t the greatest, but he can’t forget that he’s standing in the last room she took a breath in. “Well, a character. So we didn’t spend that much time here. But Betty was the only one of us with an underground basement, so in the summer we’d hang out down there after swimming in the river because it got so cool down there. Betty made cookies and then got pissed at me for chocolate stains on the throw pillows.”

 

Jughead smirked. “So I have Betty to blame for your poor knowledge of American cinema? Or was it more like an excuse to…”

 

Archie doesn’t follow. “To what?”

 

Jughead shrugs, but there’s a weird jerkiness to it. “I mean, Southside kids went to the drive-in to be unsupervised. I always pictured Northsiders in their big carpeted basements on those plush sectional couches, pretending to watch movies on big screen TVs while… you know.”

 

Archie twists his face up at the insinuation. “Ugh, no, Jug. It was never like that. I mean, sometimes it was, but only because Veronica was there… but Betty got pretty annoyed at even a tiny bit of PDA. And in Betty’s defense, I’m sure we watched all those oldies and art house shit you like, I just fell asleep most of the time.”

 

The grin on Jug’s face is somehow both sheepish and smug, though Archie can’t parse out why.

 

“So Betty was always a bit…”

 

“Stubborn?” Archie finishes.

 

“I was going to say _intense_.”

 

Archie shrugs, thinking about how even after all his popcorn spills and chocolate smudges, Betty never failed to make them snacks every movie night. “Yes and no. I mean, she’s never let anybody pull the wool over her eyes if that’s what you mean. Veronica and I tried to throw her a surprise birthday party our junior year and she sniffed us out so fast. Which was probably for the best—Veronica and I were going to do what Betty always did for us and bake a cake, which probably would have been a minor disaster.”

 

The focus on Jughead’s face reminds Archie of how he gets during a briefing. Archie prods him, feeling like he should be putting the pieces together. “What’s the look on your face?”

 

“Nothing.” He’s defensive, Archie notes. “That’s just… enlightening.”

 

Archie detects a pink flush rising up Jughead’s neck. 

 

Jughead bringing Betty to the forensic people. Jughead buying two coffees. Jughead working on his day off, but never showing up to collect evidence. Jughead working on Betty’s old house as a favor. Jughead asking if Archie and Betty were ever a thing. Jughead cataloguing details about Betty like she’s a witness, or a suspect.

 

Archie can’t help the shit-eating grin that breaks across his face. “It’s okay, Jug, I blush when I’m _enlightened,_ too.”

 

In the best comedic timing of Archie’s life, the mortification on Jughead’s face increases exponentially as the front door swings open and Betty stalks into the living room.

 

As if Archie isn’t even in the room, Betty stumbles at the sight of Jughead and stops short. 

 

“Oh.” Betty’s mouth stays parted, like she’s hoping words will fly into her gaping mouth. Jughead seems to be hoping for a similar divine intervention.

 

“I didn’t know you were here,” she states, like she’s on the record. 

 

Jughead takes several more silent beats before blurting, “You should really wear a helmet in here.”

 

“Oh, right, sorry.” 

 

Archie suppresses a bark of laughter at the incongruity of everything he knows about Betty and the practically bashful look on her face.

 

Jughead takes off his own helmet and hands it to her. Betty puts in on, fitting it awkwardly over her ponytail. “What about… don’t you need a helmet, too?” Panic flashes across Betty’s face, though not so much for Jughead’s safety, Archie thinks, but for the horror sinking in about the strange and public nature of their interaction.

 

“I’m sorry about yesterday.” Jughead’s voice seems slightly more adjusted to it’s usual steadiness and timbre. 

 

Betty nods curtly, now looking sidelong to Archie.

 

The second mystery doesn’t take as long to put together, remembering how annoyed Betty seemed about her phone for the last 24 hours, or the meaningful looks Veronica gave Betty when she stole glances at it. 

 

“It’s fine.” Almost instantly, the impenetrable shell around Betty has been resurrected. She’s pissed and either can’t help showing it, or wants Jughead to know it.

 

“I mean, I was thinking we could go tomorrow, if that works.” Jughead takes two steps forward and one step back. _Pretty damn symbolic for this interaction,_ Archie muses.

 

Betty smiles tightly. “You’re the boss, Jones.”

 

The use of his last name seems to hit Jughead like a barb. Satisfied, Betty turns to Archie. “Where can I find Fangs?”

 

Archie tries to look innocent, but Betty’s eyes read like a threat. Despite her often inscrutable front, Archie knows what she means: _Repeat this to Veronica and I will end you._

 

“Um, taking a look upstairs, I believe.”

 

After Betty ascends the stairs, firmly out of earshot, Archie turns back to Jughead, who has his eyes closed and fingertips pressed to his temple.

 

“You’re fucked,” Archie chuckles. Jughead only groans in response, and Archie feels far more gleeful than guilty for his friend’s agony. 

 

“Oh, by the way, Veronica wants you to come to dinner tomorrow night. Probably after whatever big date you’ve got planned, _Jones.”_

 

Flinching like he’s been hit with a bout of nausea, Jughead croaks, “It’s not... Can we just rip out some more cabinets, please?”

 

Archie is more than happy to oblige, mentally tallying: 

 

_Mysteries solved—Archie 1, Jughead 0._

 

 

* * *

  


Even after throwing herself head first into the renovations, as soon as Betty’s brain makes empty space, images of the sheriff crop up uninvited into her mind. She’ll look down at her hand while sketching a new floor plan draft and feel the weight of his hand on hers. When she takes a deep breath, she feels the very slow fall of his chest as she traced the placement for his mic. Anything warm reminds her of the heat of his body next to hers in the truck, hovering behind her at the shooting range. 

 

If Betty were looking at herself as a third party, as a subject of observation, she knows what she would see. Frequent deep sighs. Lip biting and cheek gnawing. A pathological addiction to unlocking and relocking her phone screen. No wonder Veronica caught on quickly.

 

Laying in bed Sunday night, after reading his one sentence excuse for not reaching out to her about the investigation for the thousandth time, Betty tried to remember if he’d made and broken a promise, or if she had deluded herself into that assumption. 

 

Her blankets feel oppressive. Every sleeping position feels impossible and her eyes begin to water, begging to be opened in defiance of Betty’s desire to escape into unconsciousness. She’s barely eaten all day, and now her stomach simultaneously begs for food and gags at the thought. It took half an hour to stomach one piece of pizza, each bite chewed until there was nothing left to grind her teeth against.

 

Betty imagines calling her therapist, Julia. _I can’t sleep or eat. No, it’s not PTSD from returning to my hometown or the discovery of my disappeared sister’s boyfriend’s dead body. No, it’s not retraumatization from walking into the room where I found my mother bleeding out or the horror movie shrine of my childhood bedroom. Actually, I’m just a twenty-nine year old woman experiencing a crush like a hormonal teenager._

 

The clock reads 1:45. Betty throws off the covers and turns on the lamp, wishing she could fight this possession head on, cut its head off, and go back to sleep.

 

Julia would love this, honestly. Not with the same twinkle in her eye as Veronica, or the determination to help her by stoking the flames of humiliation. But she would ask the questions Veronica swallowed, hesitant to breach a line in the regrowth of their friendship. 

 

 _What do you like about him?_ Julia would press. 

 

Betty traces the swirling stitches on the quilt. His eyes are beautiful and easy to read, but she always likes what she finds there. She likes that he’s the sheriff—not because of the title, but because he seems thorough, dedicated, and observant. And maybe most of all, because the moments that could have made him push her away, could have made him calculate what a mess she might be, he’d taken a step closer. 

 

At least, up until his radio silence. 

 

 _What are you afraid of?_ Julia would posit this question firmly—they would not be jumping through the hoops of _but I’m not afraid._  

 

As a rule, Betty does not allow others to make her feel powerless. The last person to do that was her father. 

 

_What do you think this man could do to make you feel powerless?_

 

Ignore her. Cut her out of the investigation. Become suspicious of her.

 

 _You’re an FBI agent, Betty. You could easily get this investigation swept out of his hands with a few calls._ Julia is gone. Betty knows she’s just projecting this whole scene anyway.

 

At the heart, it’s not about the investigation. Even if he cuts her out, even if he doesn’t call her back, that’s not the real fear. Betty thought she was addicted to information, to closure, but now she knows that’s not what she craves. Betty flops face first into her pillow.

 

The truth is that she wants him. The fear is that there is nothing that could make her stop.

 

 

 

 

It doesn’t keep her from acting like a dramatic teenager when she sees him in her living room, clearly embarrassed, while Archie beams like it’s Christmas morning. For a mortifying moment, she’s sure that Veronica told Archie, then Archie told him, and now Jones is trying to save face for Betty—which is simultaneously sweet and infuriating. If he thinks she’s pining for him after mere hours of interaction, talking to Cheryl together would be awkward and painful, much less a dinner with Veronica.

 

Betty pulls out her phone, knowing she needs to talk Veronica out of this. A long plead via text wouldn’t do it, so Betty sends something innocuous. _Demo means I can’t poke around the house. Have any errands to run?_

 

Veronica responds immediately. _Was just going to ask if you wanted to come to the grocery store._

 

Perfect. Betty could prevent the purchase of dinner party groceries; no opportunities for Veronica to guilt her with the ensuing wilting vegetables gone to waste. 

 

Veronica pulls up and waits for her outside, apologizing for taking a quick work call as they drive. It’s clearly dealing with press requests for statements about the body. They’re almost to the store when Veronica hangs up with a sigh. “I shouldn’t complain, I’m sure they’re getting slammed at the sheriff's station.”

 

Betty tries to keep her face still, but that must give her away because Veronica latches on. 

 

“Have something to share with the class, B?”

 

“Just wondering if that’s true if the sheriff is currently tearing apart my mother’s kitchen.”

 

Veronica turns sharply into the parking lot. “Well, he probably left things with Sweet Pea and Mad Dog in pursuit of… other investigations.” She waggles her eyebrows and Betty sighs.

 

“Can we cancel this dinner?”

 

“What! Why?” Veronica brakes a little too hard in the parking space. 

 

“Because this whole thing with Jones is spiraling into a terrible combination of embarrassing and unprofessional.”

 

Veronica doesn’t respond, just gets out of the driver’s seat and starts towards the store. Betty trails, wishing she’d never come along. In the cool air of the produce section, Veronica whips out a list and begins counting lemons and wrapping bunches of asparagus.

 

“Fine.” Betty can’t stem the bile of her anxious questions. “Give me the dirt. Tell me the worst about him. Don’t spare any detail and _don’t_ try to tell me you don’t know. Tell me about the creepy loner cabin. Tell me about the bad ex-girlfriends. Tell me about his drinking problem or the bribes he’s taken.”

 

Veronica turns back to Betty, eyebrows raised. “Alright, but I don’t think I can help you logic your way out of this.” She leads them toward the potatoes and onions. “Jughead lives in a cabin in Fox Forest. I’ve never been there, but Archie has, so he might be the better one to ask. He grew up in Sunnyside trailer park, so I think he likes not having neighbors. He’s always been a bit… guarded. Private.”

 

Betty catalogues this information, embellishing the cabin with piles of dirty laundry and unwashed dishes. A video game console, maybe, if he has any signal. CDs in piles, left out of their cases. Empty coffee cups and beer cans. She’s not sure if it’s having the intended effect. Her own barely lived-in apartment in Virginia isn’t much to brag about. There are still boxes packed from her last move, two years prior. Nothing much on the walls. Only condiments in the fridge. It’s far from her dream home, so she probably can’t judge Jones’ bachelor cabin.

 

Veronica sneaks her own question in return, a subtle maneuver of cross-examination. “I don’t mean this indelicately but… I can’t really picture you as the dating type either.”

 

Betty shakes her head almost like she’s shuddering. “No. I don’t. I mean, I’m a good actor. I’ve gone undercover, learned to dig up information from just about any man in a bar. But that’s not real, it’s just… work.” 

 

The core of Veronica’s question remains unanswered, but Betty doesn’t want to list the invoice of her romantic and emotional damages, so she gestures passing an invisible microphone back to Veronica, who sighs in resignation, pushing the cart towards the butcher counter.

 

“There aren’t any bad ex-girlfriends, at least, as long as we’ve known him. Not many at all, really. He and Toni are close, so maybe there’s history there, but Toni is with Cheryl now. Well… there was Ethel.”

 

“Muggs? Really?” Betty blushes at her tone. Ethel is extremely nice, she shouldn’t be shocked. Or perhaps, Ethel’s niceness is part of the shock. Jones seems too brooding for that. 

 

Veronica doesn’t rebuff her. “I kind of… set them up. I thought it was a good idea at the time. But there wasn’t much there—she was a little head over heels, I think. Jughead was really kind about the whole thing, but it never took off.”

 

Betty nods, but the gesture feels a bit hollow. Jones’ very polite rejection sounded exactly like their interaction that morning.  

 

“I mean, dating aside, Jughead doesn’t really know how to separate work and personal life, which makes his friendship with Archie strained a lot of the time. But truthfully, his faults just make me think that you might be perfect for each other.”

 

Betty falls silent, the same nausea that kept her up the night before returning with a vengeance. It doesn’t help that, reaching the checkout lane, Betty’s phone buzzes and she knows it’s going to be him. _Confirmed with Cheryl. 9 AM. I’ll pick you up._

 

 

  


Betty dresses in a navy suit. If Jones is going to insist on holding the case at arms’ reach, she’ll just remind him of her authority at every glance. 

 

Of course, given the electric anxiety coursing through her body, Betty spends too long scooping her hair into a ponytail and pulling it down again. Archie and Veronica have left for work, and after staring at the barebones text for the fifth time in as many minutes, Betty knows she needs to get out of the bathroom and stop debating whether her eyebrow pencil looks too obvious. Downstairs, she eyes the time—8:55—and chooses her heeled black boots. Pausing once more to fuss in the entryway mirror, Betty slides her very understanded lipstick on but reties her signature work ponytail, reminding herself _this is just business._

 

Three minutes early, the truck rumbles to a stop outside. Betty takes her time locking the front door, breathing deeply to strengthen her guard. She feels a well of bitterness and mean comments filling up as a defense mechanism. Making Jones beg for forgiveness is not the most mature move on her part. Better to seem like she couldn’t care less.

 

So when she opens the door to Jones wearing suspenders and an apologetic furrow in his brow, Betty steels herself and takes the peace offering of coffee from his outstretched hand without a thank you, ignoring the flicker of disappointment across his face. Or rather, feeling all too satisfied by it. 

 

“Good morning to you, too, Betty,” Jones drawls, and Betty hates how much she likes him using her name, even if he’s annoyed. Involuntarily, she sighs, but morphs it into more of a huff.

 

“What’s with the… shouldn’t you be in uniform?” she snaps, insulting him for the suspenders she’s actually very, very distracted by, as if they are in middle school and she must tease him about all the ways he secretly drives her crazy.

 

Jones remains matter of fact. “Well, it’s not exactly in our best interest for Cheryl—or anyone—to start asking questions about your involvement. It’s best if this appears more like a social courtesy on both our parts.” He eyes her outfit. “In fact… I think you need to tone down the g-man look about fifty percent if we have any prayer of success.”

 

He’s right, but Betty doesn’t give him any points for it. Jones begins to drive a little too quickly, and Betty has to grip the seat so that she doesn’t sway too close to him. The bench seat is a blessing and a curse.

 

She strips off the suit jacket, rolls up her sleeves, and uses the rearview mirror to remove her ponytail, making a minor show of massaging and flipping volume back into her hair. And purely out of spite, Betty undoes another button on her blouse. 

 

Edging up the eastern side of town towards Thornhill, Jones averts his eyes from her and clears his throat. “That was quick.”

 

“Not my first time undercover.” She tries to make this a dig, but it comes out more like banter. 

 

“Touche.”

 

The gate to Thornhill is exactly as Betty remembers it. The night after Polly and Jason disappeared, the police dragged both families here for a press conference, no doubt at the Blossom’s behest. Both Clifford and Cheryl were given almost ten minutes of time to plea for information on their “beloved son and heir” and “my twin and soulmate, JJ, “ (which Betty always found to be a misplaced turn of phrase when referring to one’s sibling.) The Coopers were given two minutes altogether. 

 

That week at school, Betty thought that she and Cheryl might form some strange sort of intimacy over their shared trauma, but Cheryl dismissed Betty with undue cruelty in the hallways, during the several assemblies where Principal Weatherbee placed them onstage together, and of course, most notably, during the debacle with Chuck Clayton and the conquest list. 

 

As a result, Betty’s connection with Cheryl had never taken hold, but her sympathy never fully ran out. The Blossoms were a strange family, but Betty had a lot of experience dealing with others preconceptions about her personal tragedy.

 

Still, like second nature, Betty reaches to check for her gun in the band of her pants.

 

Jones, of course, does not follow her train of thought. “Oh my _god_ would you cool it, Annie Oakley? This is not a takedown. You can leave that—you should leave that in the car.”

 

Betty rolls her eyes. “As a rule, I don’t engage with a Blossom unarmed.” She punctates her point by climbing out the truck cab and closing the door on him. 

 

Jones joins her on the front step, his exhale alone betraying his exasperation. “Betty. Please look at me for one minute.”

 

She realizes she’s been avoiding this—not only looking at him, but reading him. This way, she doesn’t have to be right or wrong about his avoidance over the past few days; she can simply be angry, which feels trustworthy. Anger keeps Betty steady. Helps her burn on both ends.

 

Looking up, Betty finds a mixture of hurt and humiliation that hook her in. Jones locks in on her gaze and Betty’s knees threaten to buckle.

 

“If we’re going to do this, we need to be partners. And I fucked that up by going MIA for the last two days, which I will explain. But if we go in there right now, Cheryl is going to smell something wrong immediately. So, as your partner, I’m going to trust you and follow your instincts, but I need you to do the same. You think you know Cheryl…” He pauses, backpedalling. “You do know Cheryl, and we need that connection to keep her from spiralling. But I also know Cheryl, and I need you to trust me to make some calls on how we reveal this news.”

 

Betty feels herself nod, but she’s stuck on how he says the word _partner_ like it’s an oath; she finds she wants to keep it.

 

They’re ushered into the sitting room where Cheryl awaits, as blemishless and radiant as Betty remembers, but her expression is moderately less rueful than Betty expects. At least, until her eyes land on Betty.

 

“Sheriff Jones. I wasn’t aware this meeting included… other parties.” Cheryl swallows hard, and Betty takes the opportunity to cover for Jones.

 

“Cheryl, I apologize. I didn’t realize my presence was unknown to you. Sheriff Jones thought it best to share this with both of us.”

 

Jones cuts in quickly, but Betty doesn’t miss the breath he lets out in relief. “Unfortunately, the forensic results seemed appropriate to share with both of you, together.” 

 

Cheryl’s face freezes, perhaps already connecting the dots. “Please, sit.”

 

Noting the apprehension on Cheryl’s face, Jones doesn’t hesitate. “The body has been identified, with complete certainty, to be your brother, Jason.”

 

Cheryl’s eyes flutter closed, but she remains otherwise composed. Betty stares at a corner of the ornate carpet and shortens her breath just enough to be noticeable, but not enough to appear affected.

 

“And you believe it was my father’s doing?” Betty warbles.

 

Jones eyes flash, clearly not having planned to bring this up. “We are still waiting for more forensic information that might indicate a cause of death or a motive. Rather, Ms. Cooper, we have considered that evidence of your sister’s whereabouts are connected.”

 

Cheryl’s eyes blink open in a dead stare. Betty gasps, affecting a swallowed sob. 

 

“I would like a press conference arranged,” Cheryl announces. “The public deserves to know, and I will offer a monetary award for anyone who can come forward with information about JJ. Or… Polly.”

 

Betty has to resist both recoiling and rolling her eyes. Rewards only draw out the weirdos. The thought of press makes her shudder, but she stifles the movement.

 

 “With all due respect, Cheryl—”

 

“It’s Mayor Blossom, Elizabeth.”

 

Betty grits her teeth to avoid snapping back. “Mayor Blossom. I have just returned to Riverdale. It is already difficult for me to be here. I am struggling—” Betty conjures an image of Polly, and the tears that spill are fresh, real. “This is not what I hoped to return to. My being here will change this story line. If we want justice for Jason or Polly, we don’t want the town swept into a frenzy of Black Hood storylines unless that kind of evidence comes forth.”

 

Before Cheryl can direct a rebuttal, Jones pipes in. “I have to say, I agree. There is still a lot of information we are waiting on. So far, nothing points to the Black Hood.” 

 

Cheryl swallows but nods tightly. “I would like any and all evidence shared with my office as soon as you have it, Jones. _Immediately.”_

 

“Of course,” he answers, but Betty can tell he’s fibbing. A rush of warmth accompanies the realization that she will be his first call. _._

 

Cheryl dismisses them quickly, hardly looking at Betty until they reach the door. “I saw a renovation permit on my desk yesterday morning, Elizabeth. I appreciate your decision to finally sell that wretched place.”

 

The thought triggers like a tripped wire: someone submitted the court order that summoned Betty. It may or may not have been Cheryl, but the detail lingers unpleasantly.

 

Jones gives Cheryl a nod of as they leave the room, but his sympathetic gaze has drained. 

 

Walking the long hallway to the front door, Jones murmurs, “I’m impressed. That was… a deft handling.”

 

“Jug, I used to negotiate with very disturbed individuals for a living. Cheryl Blossom is nothing.” Betty smirks, but Jughead’s face flickers with the use of his nickname, suppressing a reaction. _Oh fuck, not again._

 

Just as Betty heaves the heavy wooden door open, a woman’s voice calls in a hushed shout from behind them. “Jug! Wait!”

 

Toni, the bartender and Cheryl’s apparent beau, glances both ways before darting down the entry hall to them. 

 

“It was JJ, wasn’t it?” Toni looks genuinely on edge. Betty imagines Cheryl may not be in the best state since they left the room, and she feels a pang of guilt for not showing more kindness toward Cheryl. 

 

Jughead nods, but Toni has noticed Betty, and her face morphs into suspicion.

 

“I’m sorry, Toni. But please… trust me.” Jughead zips his lips and Toni nods firmly, though her eyes never leave Betty. 

 

If Toni tells Cheryl that Betty has been tagging around with the sheriff for days, her plea is dead. Cheryl will call in the press out of spite. She’ll have to defend herself to the Bureau. Jug may lose the case altogether. They’ve been reckless. 

 

Jughead gets in the truck, so she follows, limbs growing numb, her brain fogging. “It’s okay, Betty. I trust Toni.”

 

Betty wants to scoff, but her lungs feel too tight. “I’m not sure you understand the stakes here, Jug. We could both lose our jobs for all this. I know I’ve joked about calling in the FBI, but trust me. Federal agents don’t have the same passion to find the right answers. If they crawl in here, they’ll chase the fastest way to close the case. It will be sloppy. Archie and Veronica will get dragged in, your friend Toni, too. They’ll make me leave imm—”

 

“Betty—” Jughead interrupts, eyes grave but soft, and Betty has to close her eyes to keep herself from doing something stupid. Then his hand is on her shoulder and her whole body feels like it’s been lit on fire.

 

“When I say I trust Toni, I mean that she is one of the closest things I have to family. My mom left town when we were fifteen and took my sister—who was nine. Toni left with her—she dropped out to join my mother’s most notorious business venture, which was a narcotics ring that spanned parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. They were busted by the DEA five years later. Toni got herself and my baby sister, JB, into rehab. She stayed clean, came back to Riverdale, but JB took off. She’s still in and out of that stuff, and sometimes… I lose tabs and she winds up in the ER again. On Sunday, she called me from the Cook County jail and I had to wire money to post bail for her.”

 

His hand and voice tremble, and Betty doesn’t think before sliding across the bench seat and wrapping her arms around him. Jughead returns the embrace, immediate and firm, and Betty wants to tuck her face into the juncture of his neck and shoulder to memorize the scent of cedar wood and bar soap on his skin. 

 

Betty has to pull away so that he can’t pick up on the way her heart thuds double time in his arms. Jughead Jones isn’t just tender under a stern edge, he isn’t just astonishingly competent for a small town sheriff, even though he’s a little controlling and assumptive. She recognizes the weight he bears, the rock of his family he’s trying to crawl out from under; the burden of duty that’s about his own soul as much as it is about the soul of Riverdale. 

 

Betty wasn’t sure, when she rolled back into the town limits, that Riverdale had a shred of spirit anymore—and not the rah rah pompom spirit of cold October afternoons. The sense of peace, of revival, of spring amidst a long and horrific winter, might be embodied right in front of her, and Betty is unfamiliar with the yearning that pounds through her chest and sends sparks through every part of her body. It’s intense and new, different from the yearning for touch. Deeper, somehow. It’s been brewing, beginning from the moment she reached to touch his hand during their first interview, or when he unexpectedly stood up for her to Dr. Curdle, and telling her about his father. 

 

Clearing his voice in the thick of their silence, Jughead’s eyes brighten. “Anyway, you probably already knew all that, with your FBI database privileges and all.”

 

Betty covers her cringe over him believing she would stoop to that (even though she certainly considered it) with a soft smile. Fixing him with a meaningful look, she keeps her voice soft and low. “Of course not. I don’t do that with people I trust.”

  


* * *

  


Objectively, Jughead knows he should not feel calm. He’s investigating the most high profile murder in the county in a decade—a murder older than a decade—which is ripe with potential for scrutiny. JB showed up in a jail cell after 11 months of sobriety and he’s still hoping that Toni will talk her into doing another in-patient program; her last court ordered rehab hadn’t gone very well. A dinner hosted by Veronica Lodge, meddler extraordinaire, looms ahead in their evening.

 

Yet his entire body feels weightless as they drive through Riverdale in the mid-morning sun, windows rolled down to the fresh spring air, and Betty Cooper’s hand splayed across the bench seat, like she’s waiting for him to hold it. At least, that’s all he can think about doing.

 

He’s remembering the first moments he’d met her, watching her switch from open to closed, soft and sweet to firm and guarded. For the past hour, she’s called him not Jones, not even Jughead, just _Jug_. Every time, his breath catches. If Betty has softened around him, he’s melted. Now he knows that her hair smells like peonies and that maybe, someday, her head could puzzle perfectly into his shoulder if he placed a hand at the nape of her neck.

 

The last thing he wants to do is bring her back to the Andrews’ and wave goodbye until the evening, when she could close up again. But he has to go to the station and relieve Sweet Pea, who will give him misery if he’s so much as five minutes past due.

 

Turning onto Elm, Jughead knows he only has a few moments left to take her hand. _Better now than later. Better late than never._ He can’t find the boldness of the other day, when he’d practically caressed her hip at the gun range. _Okay, on the count of three._

 

_The count of five._

 

_Count of ten._

 

_Fourteen._

 

The hill mounts, and the Cooper and Andrew’s homes peek into view. Keeping his eyes on the road, Jughead takes his right hand from the wheel and reaches for her, but all he finds is leather. Betty is reaching for her jacket with both hands. Jughead wants to knock his head against the window as he slows in front of Archie and Veronica’s. 

 

But even this doesn’t dissolve Jughead’s calm, because Betty looks up to notice his hand on the seat where hers had been and blushes, pressing her lips together. 

 

Jughead opens his mouth, unsure and terrified of what’s about to come out. A sunbeam hits Betty in the forehead and he feels the same way as when she walked into the Cooper living room yesterday—speechless and deeply inadequate. 

 

A car door slams across the street and they both jump, rocking the truck cab. 

 

“Oh, god _damn_ it.” 

 

Betty scoots across the bench seat, their thighs close enough to graze, to follow his gaze out the driver’s side window. “What is it?”

 

Jughead heaves a sigh at the bright blue sedan. “Just the fucking bane of my existence. Thinks he’s some sort of rogue journalist, mud-raking truth-teller.”

 

She’s too close to look at without blushing, but he can imagine the change in expression with her tone. “Are you anti-free press or something because that’s… a partnership deal-breaker.”

 

“First of all, he’s not the press. He runs a shitty blog about Riverdale, which passes as news since… well, the Register was liquidated with the Lodge’s assets. Anyway, aren’t you a _fed?_ What exactly do _you_ have to say to me about the free press and freedom of information?”

 

“I’ll have you know that I was the only member of the journalism club in high school and single handedly produced the student newspaper.”

 

Jughead can’t resist the dig. “I don’t know, that still sounds like a media monopoly. And I’ll have _you_ know that I tried to start a school newspaper, but it turned out that my English teacher was selling drugs and then got shot by a serial killer.” The words slide out Jughead’s mouth before he can stop them. “Fuck, I’m sorry, that was—”

 

Betty is shaking, and it takes him a moment to realize she’s laughing, and though he’s probably not allowed to laugh in the same way, he wants to.

 

“Okay, okay, where’re this nuisance of a journalist, then?” 

 

As if summoned from the depths of Jughead’s personal hell, Dilton Doiley raps on Jughead’s window. To his humiliation, Betty bursts into a new fit of laughter. “Let me handle this, sheriff. Get this _riff raff_ off your back.” 

 

Betty checks for her gun before sliding out of the truck, but this time, Jughead doesn’t try to stop her from using it. “Dilton Doiley. Long time no see. What brings you here, stalking the sheriff on a lovely Tuesday morning?”

 

Jughead tucks his grin between his teeth as Doiley’s mouth drops. “Betty Cooper? What… what are you doing here?”

 

Betty just closes her eyes and shakes her head slowly, clucking softly. “If this is payback for not letting you do the survivalist column in the Blue and Gold…”

 

Dilton goes beet red. “Actually, I’ve got my own online publication for local Riverdale news and—”

 

“And if you’d like an interview, know who you’re ambushing,” Betty retorts, punctuating with the unmistakable click of the safety on her pistol. Dilton’s eyes flash to Jughead before darting back to his car.

 

The whole scene is possibly the hottest thing he’s ever witnessed.

 

“Um, thank you.”

 

“Scaring dipshits like Doiley is more pleasure than service.” 

 

Jughead is already two minutes late to relieve Sweet Pea, but the whining might just be worthwhile. Betty is outside the car and he is inside; a frustrating but cautionary boundary. 

 

“I’ll see you tonight, I guess.”

 

Betty tilts her head to the side. “Partner.”  
  
  


 

 

The station is quieter than Jughead anticipates—Sweet Pea left him a note on his office door. _Forensics will call back tonight. Potential cause of death and DNA evidence. Mad Dog will come by at 6 if you’re still waiting on the call._

 

Jughead sighs, half relieved that he doesn’t have to explain his lateness to Sweet Pea and half annoyed that he can’t ask follow up questions. The forensics team must have called with some kind of initial report; he checks his email and finds nothing.  

 

Sweet Pea answers on the fifth ring, scoffing in lieu of a greeting. “No, _chief,_ they didn’t give me any details, but I hope you ripped the band aid off for the mayor and the Black Hood lady because I have a feeling that once the evidence rolls in… things will move quickly.”

 

Jughead rolls his eyes. “Yeah, unless the DNA evidence points to someone already serving two life sentences.” Sweet Pea is silent for just long enough that Jughead clarifies, “I’m talking about Hal Cooper, Pea.”

 

“Even easier, bim bam boom, case closed.”

 

He shouldn’t need to explain to Sweet Pea that nothing involving Cheryl or Betty is going to be a simple _case closed_ matter, but he knows that if he says Betty’s name aloud that Sweets will hear it—whatever _it_ is, whatever Archie heard—and he’s not quite ready to answer the inquisition that would follow.

 

“I’ll keep you posted, P.”

 

“Why did you need Mad Dog to come in tonight? Is there something happening? Am I invited?”

 

Jug knows that Sweet Pea is just being a little shit, but he’s thankful that his quickening pulse can’t be heard over the phone. “Just hanging out with Arch. We, uh…” he grapples for an activity that Sweets won’t try to invite himself to. “He found out I don’t suck at the drums and now he’s determined to _jam_. I was kind of an asshole about his Jason Blossom theory, so I owe him.”

 

“Ooh yikes, you’re on your own with that one, Jug.”

 

 _More than you know._  

 

Breathing a sigh of relief as he hangs up, Jughead clicks the door to his office closed and drops into his chair. Relief is short lived; photos of Betty still cover his desk, spilling out of the old Cooper case files still stacked there.

 

The problem is that Jughead isn’t sure he’s ever liked someone. He didn’t kiss a girl until his seventeenth birthday, when they’d all gotten a little too drunk and rowdy in the Sunnyside rec lawn and Jughead woke up half naked in Toni’s bed. He remembered it—the kiss, the subsequent teenage groping—but something about Toni’s face in the morning light told him it wasn’t going to happen again. Not that he wanted or needed it to. Teenage Jughead was horny and curious, and Toni thought she was doing him a favor. There wasn’t even enough time for it to be awkward; Toni was back on the road for Gladys within days. 

 

He tried to really like Sara, a fresh new face in Riverdale, still green from the police academy. But they worked together, and it didn’t take long for her to witness a spat between himself and FP. After that, she’d slide phrases like _childhood wound_ into conversations over pancakes at Pop’s. When shit hit the fan with the Lodges, she asked for a transfer. 

 

Sweet Pea urged him to have an “experimental” phase—his poor euphemism for a lot of casual sex—but the few instances where Jughead didn’t feel creeped out by the concept of meeting someone in a bar, when it felt like the night evolved at the initiation of sober and repeatedly consensual intentions of the woman in question, he still left with a guilty aftertaste that lingered for weeks. 

 

He had wanted to like Ethel; she was kind, well-read, and willing to take things exceptionally slow. The problem was that Jughead didn’t ever want things to speed up. He wanted to eat lunch with Ethel to avoid the station drama, wanted to joke about Archie’s latest foils, but he didn’t want anything more than friendship.

 

Jughead thought he was content with bachelorhood—he liked his hermit cabin and his seatbelt-less truck and not having to tell anyone that he’d be at the station until midnight. 

 

At least, he thought he preferred no intense eye contact at a gas station, no second cup of coffee in his order, no peony shampoo. No breached protocol or flirting over microphones. No holding his breath when she hits him with a cold stare. No lying awake at 2 AM, wondering why she used his childhood nickname out of the blue, or if she blushed afterward, or if that was just the way the light hit her face. No wondering if his teenage murder board newspaper clippings left a papercut on his heart that reopened she touched his hand in the Andrews’ dining room. 

 

But now, Jughead glances at the clock every few minutes until he’s allowed to leave, to see her again. Now, he thinks he might know what it’s like to feel lonely. Now that he thinks he might not have to.

  
  
  


 

By the time he arrives on the Andrews’ doorstep, Jughead can’t tell what he’s more starving for—food, or Betty Cooper. 

 

So when the front door opens to Betty, dressed in a yellow sundress, her hair down and looking much more like a shampoo commercial than usual, _and_ holding an enormous cheese plate, Jughead thinks he might be having a stroke. 

 

He’s wearing the same clothes as that morning, but she still smiles and murmurs, “You look nice.”

 

“You um—that’s a lot of cheese.” _Killing it with the compliments, Jones._

 

Betty looks down at the cheese plate like she’s just realizing it’s there. “Oh! Veronica wanted me to make sure you had snacks.”

 

From behind them, Archie chimes in. “As usual, Ronnie’s behind schedule, but this time she knew not to risk your hanger.” 

 

Jughead blushes at the thought of the three of them discussing his appetite like he’s the five year old child they need to appease, but then his stomach rumbles and he can’t be bothered to act dignified about it. 

 

Veronica summons them into the kitchen, which smells incredible, though when Betty steps within a few feet, all he can smell is her hair again. The conflict in his senses is unprecedented. 

 

“Okay! Steaks are resting, veggies are grilling. Actually, Arch, can you go check on those?” 

 

“I was just out there, babe.”

 

Veronica smiles tightly. “Go check.” _Of course she knows, too._

 

He chances a look at Betty, planning an eyeroll to indicate he thinks Veronica’s being weird, but Betty is already looking sideways at him and chewing her bottom lip. If he didn’t know better, he’d say Betty looked nervous. About him. 

 

Reaching for another piece of bread and cheese, Jughead considers that _maybe_ this dinner was not invented by Archie and Veronica to torture him. That maybe Betty had more to do with all of Archie’s teasing than he realized. 

 

_It’s best to recognize the utterly insane case theories before moving on. Eat a piece of cheese and move on, kid._

 

Veronica asks for casual updates about the case and Betty’s attention is rapt. He backs against the wall so that he can see her at all times, but he knows, realistically, it’s just for details on the case.

 

“Evidence coming in from the county any minute, actually. Might have some moves to make in the morning. I have no idea what, though, they were pretty vague.”

 

Veronica enlists them all in carrying food to the table. Archie and Veronica sit on either end, like they’re play acting parents. 

 

Jughead follows the conversation and participates, but at any given moment, he couldn’t repeat what they’ve discussed. For once, he’s more focused on stealing glances across the table than on eating the food on his plate. His stomach somersaults every time he finds Betty already looking at him. The food is delicious, but for the first time in his life, it’s not really helping.

 

More than once, Jughead is caught staring by Archie, but once everyone’s plates are somewhat cleared, he notices Veronica smirk at Betty, and evidence to the theory that Betty might very well be having the same thoughts becomes dangerously clear.

 

They clear the table together, Betty insisting that they help, as the guests. The Emily Post propriety doesn’t surprise him, but the abrupt excuse to be alone with him does, however thrilling. But once in the kitchen, she doesn’t say anything, just the soft suggestion of, “I’ll wash, you dry?” 

 

Maybe she just wanted to escape Veronica’s gaze. Maybe she wanted to confess that she also cannot stop thinking about him and it’s beginning to affect her basic motor skills and general brain function. But instead, they slip into a silent exchange of dishware and utensils.

 

The silence with her is soothing rather than awkward. Still, Jughead feels restless, suddenly attacked with the urge to wrap his arms around Betty from behind. To comb his hands through her hair and plant a kiss on her temple. To—

 

He closes his eyes, squashing the inappropriate scene blooming out of control in his mind. Really, he should leave before he does something stupid. When the dishes are done, Betty looks around with an expression of mild panic. Her throat bobs, swallowing, and Jughead has the absurd desire to taste her neck. 

 

“Are you two finished in there, yet?” 

 

Jughead knows he’s turning magenta. Betty calls back that they’re coming and turns on her heel, speeding out to the living room. 

 

His head is spinning, trying to divine what she wants. First she beckons, then she retreats, and he feels dizzy trying to follow. And he could stay and chat with her and Archie and Veronica, ride out the evening and see if she makes a move. But his head aches a little at the thought of more conversation he’ll barely follow. He’s not sure he can take any more skipped heartbeats hoping she’ll reach for his arm or touch her knee with his. 

 

What Jughead’s really waiting for is a moment alone, a goodnight, and he could force that to happen now, let Betty take the bait or leave it. Either way, the agony of ambiguity will end, even if the agony of heartbreak takes its place. Slowly pacing into the living room, he makes for his shoes, signaling that he’s going to leave.

 

“I’m really sorry, I just got a text from Mad Dog and I have to go back to work. Thank you, Veronica, so much, for dinner.”

 

Veronica fusses with disappointment, and Archie frowns before giving him a bro-swat on the arm. Betty looks paralyzed, perched on the couch. Jughead knows he can’t read minds or interpret behaviors the way Betty can, but he feels confident that she’s torn about something. He waits a beat, hoping she’ll make some kind of motion, but she stays frozen in place.

 

“I’ll see you all later, then.” 

 

Veronica stands to open the door, flashing her eyes wide at Betty as she does. Jughead thanks her again and tries not to look back. His blood is pounding and he’s craving a cigarette more than he has in years. 

 

Halfway down the drive, he gives into temptation and turns around. It’s dark enough that the picture window shows them clearly and he’s hidden by shadow. Betty swirls her gaze from the door to Archie and Veronica, then back again. 

 

He makes it all the way to the truck before he hears the Andrews’ door open and close again. Betty’s barefoot, tiptoeing down the drive after him. Jughead doesn’t know if he’s more afraid or relieved that she took the bait.

 

It’s colder outside than Betty’s dress was designed for, and she’s already shivering. Stopped just an arm’s reach in front of him, she talks towards his chin, her voice shaking. 

 

“So, I don’t know if you actually have to go to the station, or what, because you looked kind of annoyed in there and I didn’t know if it was because you didn’t want to be called into work, but then you gave me this weird look—”  

 

“Betty.” She _was_ noticing him. Reading him. 

 

“and then I thought maybe you were annoyed at me and I just needed to make sure and apologize because—”

 

“Betty,” he tries to interject again, to try to tell her that he wasn’t annoyed at her, that really, all he wants to do is rewind to moment she looked at him in the kitchen and push her up against the cabinets.

 

“ _Because_ I know this whole night was a little bit awkward and that’s entirely my fault because my brain just short-circuits when you—”

 

“ _Betty._ ”  

 

She stops, finally meeting his eyes, her mouth still formed on _you_ , and Jughead curves his hand behind the nape of her neck, leans down, and kisses her. Betty pulls back, startled, but within seconds, kisses him back, so deeply and firmly that he loses his balance, and they stagger backwards against the truck bed, her hands winding into his hair. 

 

Like a curse, his phone starts to buzz and Betty scrunches up her face in adorable frustration. He ignores the call and sets it on “do not disturb,” while Betty brushes her lips along his jaw. Jughead emits groan, overwhelmed by the degree of arousal caused by such a simple gesture. He slows their pace by holding her head softly between his hands, pressing their lips back together softly. Betty follows his lead, but the slow pull of his bottom lip between hers does nothing to impede his hunger for her. Still, they go slow; he tries to savor the softness of her breath against his face, memorizing the sensation to replay as he tries and fails to sleep. 

 

Then the phone rings, which means someone has tried to call him repeatedly. Jughead curses. _Jellybean, I’m going to kill you,_ he thinks—there doesn’t seem like anyone else who would intentionally call him when he’s clearly not available. But guilt hits him harder than his annoyance. She might need help, or might be coming down from a bad trip—the things she hates to call for but has no one else to trust.

 

Painfully, he extracts himself from Betty’s arms. “Damnit, I need to go. It’s probably my sister and…”

 

Betty nods with understanding, her chest heaving as she tries to catch her breath and Jughead tries not to throw his phone into the storm drain and pick up where they left off. 

 

“I hope everything is okay. Keep me informed this time.”

 

The call rings out and starts again, pressuring the length of their goodbye. “I will. I’ll call you tomorrow. Maybe that evidence will finally come in.”

 

“Come on, Jug, don’t get me riled up saying things like that.” Betty cocks an eyebrow and Jughead can’t help leaning in for one last short kiss.

 

“Goodnight, Betty.” He hates and loves this phrase, but not nearly as much as the way she walks slowly backwards, biting her bottom lip. 

 

“Goodnight, Jug.”

 

She’s all the way back in the house before he finally reaches for the phone, surprised to see Sweet Pea’s name on the caller ID. _Fucking incompetent._

 

“There better be a suspect, motive, and murder weapon for this degree of harassment, P..”

 

“Dude, evidence is in. Dr. Curdle called and briefed us on some other things they found at the burial site. Get this, they found a costume wig—short, black, like that chick in Pulp Fiction.”

 

 _Weird,_ he thinks, but Jughead can’t connect a black wig to anything notable. It’s not a ski mask by any means. “Okay… and?”

 

“They tested for DNA on all the hair particles in the wig cap. Jug, it’s got Betty Cooper’s DNA all over it.”

  


 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you very much for reading! give me a yell in the comments! xoxo


	5. suspect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eternal gratitude for your patience, and for heartunsettledsoul, my twin-beta-cheerleader in all things

 

_ but would you leave me _

_ if I told you what I've done _

_ and would you leave me _

_ if I told you what I've become _

 

Archie switches off the bedside lamp, curling around Veronica, nestling his knees behind hers and pressing a kiss to the back of her neck. He won’t fall asleep that way—Archie’s a surprisingly finicky sleeper—but Veronica will. Every night, unless she’s already asleep, he’ll wait until the rise and fall of her breath sinks from her chest to her stomach.  

When they were teenagers, they could never risk falling asleep together, and he still hasn’t stopped feeling giddy relief for the lack of curfews and Hiram Lodge. Back then, when she smelled like her Chanel perfume, he used it as a sensory alarm to stay awake when they drifted in front of the glow of the television or laptop screen. She doesn’t spend the money to smell like a walking department store any more, but Archie doesn’t mind. He knows Veronica’s real scent, something impossible to describe; the one that clings to her pillow, her bathrobe, the back of her neck.  

Archie traded the days of lovesick stomach flips and distracted gazes for this kind of steadiness, for memorization. Seeing Betty stutter and Jughead reel all night was like watching an intimate play: thrilling, but only because he’s remembering, with fondness, the terror of falling for someone. The memory of those sinking feelings is better than actually riding the highs and the lows, unsure how it will end. After all, the lows once felt like they could last the rest of this life.

After the Black Hood, Archie and Veronica became twin pillars for Betty, holding her up in the ruins. His mom and dad held him up, too, stepping in to do the many things he didn’t know how to—signing paperwork, contesting Alice and Hal’s will, explaining legal procedures, finding Betty a place to rest and recover over the summer. When Betty drove away, Veronica became obsessive about planning what they would all do on school breaks, potential trips and reunion traditions. Archie tried to be peacefully non-committal, not wanting to fracture Ronnie’s coping mechanisms with the truth he already knew, deep down. Betty was gone from Riverdale and from  _ them _ in a different way than he or Veronica would when moving to college in a few more weeks.

The distance between Manhattan and Binghamton was only three hours—long enough to excuse the cancelled trips to see Veronica, but close enough for her to believe that next weekend would be different. Archie guiltily thrived in the rush of new acquaintances, new social settings to master, a new routine that didn’t include violence or fear. Before Thanksgiving he said over the phone:  _ maybe it’s best if we just focus on ourselves right now.  _ She agreed, but Archie knew that Veronica would have white-knuckled against the inevitable. For solace, when he regretted the break up, he would repeat the cliched adage:  _ if you love something, set it free. _

But really, Archie knew that he wasn’t married to Veronica because he’d set her free back in college. If anything, they found each other again despite this, and despite many of the ways the world had continued to hurt them. They had always known that it hurt a lot less together.

At least, this is what Archie tries to remind himself, when his phone rings, and Jughead is begging him to leave as quietly as possible, come to the station, and don’t tell Veronica. Even more importantly, do  _ not  _ wake Betty.

 

 

Archie could sense from Jughead’s tone over the phone that something was very wrong, but when he pulls into the station parking lot, the sight of Jughead pacing, stubbing out a cigarette with his toe while he lights a new one kicks Archie’s heart rate from alert into dread. The last time he saw Jughead chain smoking was outside the Riverdale courthouse, before and after FP’s sentencing hearing. Archie had been Jughead’s sole confidant about gathering evidence against his father for the FBI’s investigation, back when their friendship was new and unstrained by differences in rank. There is a whiplash spark of realization: if Jughead is calling him in now, it’s because Archie is the only person he can trust.

Archie climbs out of the car, deciding to approach Jughead slowly. “How many is that?” he asks.

Jughead looks down at the cigarette in his hand like he’d forgotten it was there. “Too many.” The parking lot is dark, only the floodlight near the entrance leaving an eerie glow, but it’s enough to see that Jughead’s pale forehead is dewy with sweat.

“Is this about the case? Or did something happen with Betty?”

Jughead scrunches his eyes shut and takes a long drag. He mutters, “Both,” and it hits Archie like an uppercut below the sternum, the instinct to gag shudders through him. 

“What’s the evidence, Jug.” It’s more of a demand than a question, and Archie feels both unsettled and emboldened that for once, it is him, and not Jughead, forging a path forward.

Jughead looks past him, into the dark. “There were rumors. A few weeks after Jason Blossom’s disappearance. About two high school girls exacting revenge on a football player.”

Archie’s blood runs cold. “Chuck Clayton.”

Jughead nods, and Archie can’t read his tone or his face. He’s disturbed, certainly, and Archie’s gut twists at the likely reasons why.

“What does this have to do with Jason’s body? That all happened after. No one pressed charges.” Just remembering the fiasco triggers a shot of bile burning up Archie’s throat. No one pressed charges because Veronica and Betty blackmailed Chuck off the football team. As far as Archie is still concerned, he deserved worse. 

Jughead seems comforted by Archie’s insistence because he stops puffing, but his voice still quivers. “Arch, they found that costume wig—Betty’s wig—in Jason’s grave.”

Archie’s heart stops. “That doesn’t make any sense. It all happened—”

“After Jason disappeared?” Jughead raises his eyebrows with his voice, and Archie can’t tell who he’s looking to fault. The lack of sleep and adrenaline warring to the point of nausea makes Archie reach out for the cigarette. He coughs through the exhale. “There’s just no way.”

Jughead’s face breaks into an expression Archie’s never seen; it’s desperate, devastated, and hopeful all at once. Religious. He finishes the cigarette before meeting Archie’s eyes. “You don’t think there is  _ any  _  possibility that Betty decided to take a step further. Once she saw Polly’s name on the list—”

“No.” Only he and Veronica saw the aftermath of Betty’s interrogation of Chuck—the nail marks on her palms, the way her mind went blind with rage about Polly. It had scared Betty, torn her to shreds for weeks afterward. There was no way she’d have been able to handle murder without him or Veronica noticing. Even during the reign of the Black Hood, Archie still  _ noticed  _ Betty fading from view _. _ Even when they all moved away, when the calls to Betty’s number stopped going through, Archie felt like he couldn’t  _ stop _ noticing her, even in her absence. 

“Do  _ you  _ think there is any possibility?” Archie asks. He could tell from the hours at their house that evening that Jughead was far from apathetic to Betty, mostly because Jughead has never been someone who emulates romance or desire. Jug’s not one to lose track of the conversation because he’s watching a woman intently from across the room. He’s never been socially graceful, but he’s also never left Riverdale, so everyone gives him a pass for his standoffish behavior and awkward candor. Professionally—outside the circle of permissive friends and acquaintances—he’s hardened. Never stuttering. Never flushed. It made him suited for public office, but not for interpersonal entanglements.

Jughead takes one last inhale and stubs out the cig on a rusty edge of his own truck bed. “No. I believe you, Arch. But Sweet Pea won’t consider any alternatives. You know how he can get when he thinks he’s right… I already had to talk him out of going to your place and cuffing her in the middle of the night.”

_ “Jesus, _ you’re not going to arrest her, are you?”

Jughead massages his face. “Fuck.” The raw crack of Jug’s voice hits Archie with an unexpected weight—Jughead doesn’t just want to leap to Betty’s defense. He wants to preserve whatever sliver of possibility there is that these two lonely people could find an improbable future in each other. God knows neither of them had much semblance of family.  

“I hope not. I called you because if, at this point, they find out that Betty’s been privy to all the details of the investigation or that I’ve interacted with Betty outside anything expressly documented in the case notes… It would compromise everything, and it sure as hell won’t protect her.” 

Now it clicks; Archie has seen Jughead through a crisis before, and he’s uniquely poised to shoulder Jug through this one, too. A mixture of pride and bitterness clash—heart swelling to be anybody’s first call, but he hasn’t felt like the bedrock of his friendship with Jughead has been truly solid since the last storm they weathered together.

“You can’t call Pea off because you’re not supposed to know Betty. But I do know Betty. I can vouch for her.” Archie’s role becomes clear and for once, he knows that he’s never been more prepared for a task. 

“I can try to influence Sweet Pea as… a superior.” Jug chokes a little on the word. He doesn’t like to hold that leverage over anyone, Archie knows. Authority is not something he takes lightly—Jughead will never allow himself to take the heavy hand that FP Jones did. Even and especially with Sweet Pea, his oldest and most hard-headed friend. 

“But only you can make the case for Betty as someone close to her.” Archie nods, turning his gaze on the front door, ready to dish it back to Sweet Pea in the briefing room for once. Jughead senses his hunger, warning, “We’ve got to be  _ very _ careful.” 

 

 

Sweet Pea paces across the briefing room, reminding Archie of a basketball player whose coach is about to put him in the game with minutes to spare.  

“Andrews,” he greets, “I need you get an arrest warrant started.”

Archie sighs, trying to remember more of the plan Jughead had started babbling through in the parking lot. Jughead, already fiddling with his lighter inside his jacket pocket, would be the cool, objective one. The nuance, the emotion, the perspective had to come from Archie, so he squares up like he’s stepping into the ring. “I don’t think there is enough for an  _ arrest _ . The wig could have been planted. The timeline doesn’t make sense. There’s no clear motive.” He’s thinking of all the detectives’ exam textbook points, but it’s true. Nothing lines up. 

Sweet Pea rolls his eyes. “I didn’t think we needed to get  _ you _ up to speed, but let’s review the situation.” 

Archie doesn’t hide his own responding eyeroll. “Yes, right, let’s review the fact that Chuck Clayton, captain of the Bulldogs, perpetuated a tradition of scoring sexual conquests with point totals. Definitely the type of person we should be using as a character witness against two of the women he victimized.”

Sweet Pea’s jaw sets. “I’m not trying to paint anybody in any kind of light, Andrews.”

Archie scoffs, unsure what he could possibly mean. “You’re literally trying to paint Betty as a murderer.”

Sweet Pea plows on. “We can leave your wife out of this. But Jason Blossom was in on that game. Tell me: what you think ran through Betty Cooper’s head when she saw her sister’s name in that notebook? When they gave her sister a point score? When Betty showed she was motivated enough to lure Chuck Clayton into an overheated hot tub, dressed as a prostitute, and nearly drown him with six inch stilettos? What do you think, given the chance, she might have done to Jason Blossom?”

Jughead interjects, his voice quiet but strained. “That’s all speculation. It will look very bad for us to arrest Miss Cooper over high school misogyny.” 

Sweet Pea throws his hands up. “It fits the timeline! We have motive! Are we just going to overlook that she assaulted someone—arguably attempted murder—with a narrative that could easily apply to Blossom?”

Jughead jerks his shoulders in a shrug, and Archie can tell he’s trying to hold himself back—when two stubborn Southside boys go head to head, things can spiral fast. “If we arrest her, shit is going to blow up from all sides. Not just a Black Hood’s daughter press storm, not just speculation about an all-male sheriff’s department dragging out the harassment faced over a decade ago by teenage girls, but possibly a full-blown FBI take-over of this investigation.” 

Archie notes that he holds back from stating why—if Jughead has known Betty’s an FBI agent all along, it will look (accurately) like he’s been withholding information.

“Is that why you’ve been smoking like a damn chimney? You think the feds are gonna sweep in? Get real, Jones, they don’t give a fuck about this podunk town. A pair of dead teens from over a decade ago is potatoes compared to a multi-millionaire extortionist. But  _ we  _ still have people to answer to.”

Jughead’s jaw is clenched so hard that his whole head looks like it’s trembling. “It’s a gut feeling. You’re going to turn this into a spectacle by accusing an innocent but publically known woman whose recent return makes her into a suspicious scapegoat.”

Approaching Jughead slowly, Sweet Pea’s gaze lingers studiously over Jughead’s features, making Archie stomach flip. “You’re being weirdly sensitive about serial-killer Barbie, Jug.”

Jughead gulps, but exhales to relax his face. “It’s my  _ job _ to tell you when I think you’re doing bad police work. But if I’m overruled by Mad Dog… it’ll be your call. Your case to win.” 

 Sweet Pea spits back, “If you’ve got a better explanation, by all means, let’s hear it. What’s your big defense for the Cooper girl?”

Archie’s mind flashes to Betty, nervously pacing around the kitchen with a cheese plate, looking like a teenager waiting to get picked up by her date for a big dance. Betty, tirelessly tracking the man who tried to kill Archie’s father. The same girl who amassed so many volunteer hours at the senior center while in high school that they tried to offer her a full-time job before her senior year. Truthfully, no version of Betty has ever needed anyone to come to her defense; she’s clawed her way through worse. At this point, Archie would gladly sit back and watch Sweet Pea get eviscerated by either Betty’s blind teenage rage or FBI Betty’s cold, calculating glares.

Jughead opens and closes his mouth, unable to bear witness, so Archie bursts, “We _do_ have a lead. Someone planted that wig, knowing that this would happen. Wanting Betty targeted. She’s not capable of this.”

Sweet Pea softens his tone, but his words still grate. “Maybe you should go home, Andrews. Check on your wife.”

Archie opens his mouth to protest, but Jughead announces that he’ll walk Archie out, already digging in his pockets for his pack of cigarettes.

Outside, Archie feels his whole body start to uncoil, shaking with the desire to throw a punch at Sweet Pea. “I’m scared, Jug. What is he on? Why is he turning this into a witch hunt? God, Betty came back to this place that hurt her and  _ this  _ is how she’s going to be treated?”

Jughead grips Archie’s shoulder. “I’m not going to let anything happen to Betty.” 

Archie trusts the ferocity in Jughead’s eyes, in his tone, in the way he says Betty’s name, but the badge on Jug’s chest remains. “Then you have to stand up to Pea. Use your authority. Call him the hell off. Tell him—”

Jughead shakes his head, and Archie can sense the tremors shaking through Jug’s body. “He already thinks I know something. If I do this wrong, Arch, I lose my job. If anyone knows that Betty and I… I  _ definitely _ lose my job. Betty likely loses hers too. And that’s the best case scenario.”

Knows that Betty and you  _ what?  _ Archie wants to know, but it’s not the moment to ask. 

Jughead sighs, continuing. “I can make sure they keep this out of the press until things blow over. Everything is circumstantial except the damn wig. I’m gonna work on that. But for now, we cannot tell Betty.”

Archie was inclined to nod along until Jug's last sentence, but he knows they’re already deeply compromised. Normally, knowing his boss and sheriff has breached protocol, has put his personal feelings before professional duties, would be unsettling. Would remind Archie of who Jughead’s father was. But in this instance, it’s for Betty.

“She’ll throw herself on the sword. That’s what I’m scared of… if she knows anything. She protected me and Veronica from the Black Hood by cutting herself off from us. She did that shit to Chuck because he was a piece of garbage not just to her, but to Veronica, to Ethel, to half the girls at Riverdale High. And even though Hal Cooper could have been tried in federal court and gotten the death penalty, she’s the one who fought to keep the case at the state level.”

Jughead looks calmer than he has all night, like the last of his doubts have been chased away. “I’m going to do everything I can. I promise.” 

 

* * *

 

Watching Archie drive away, Jughead resists going back inside. He knows how the rest of the night will go. Sweet Pea will argue for Betty’s arrest. Jughead will posit that they don’t need to escalate the situation; they’ll bring her in for questioning in the morning, give her a chance to speak on the wig. Neither scenario will help him sleep tonight.

He keeps closing his eyes, willing himself back to their kiss, but it’s fuzzy, shrouded by the overwhelming dryness of his mouth, the cloud of anxiety that overtook him as soon as Sweet Pea said  _ Betty Cooper’s DNA.  _ Sitting, head against the steering wheel, the first thing that could make him think was a half full pack of smokes in the glove compartment that remained semi-forgotten from years ago. The second thing, he could think while driving to the station, was to call Archie.

Of course, Archie told him what he wanted—needed—to hear. The wig must have been planted. It couldn’t be her. This gives his brain permission to remember that Betty was stalked by the  _ Black Hood _ , a serial murderer who was far more likely to be involved in Jason’s murder. Or that Betty kept her name and Riverdale address for her sister to find her again. Sure, that might sound like someone who’d kill for their sibling. But thinking about JB, selling pills at ritzy clubs or fucked up on some dirty mattress on any given night, frankly made him feel ready to kill someone, too. 

If Betty is messed up, Jughead figures he is too. If she is, maybe he wants to be. 

That thought makes him light the last smoke in his pack.

He recognizes Mad Dog’s headlights coming down the road, having taken his sweet time getting back to the station after working extra hours already that evening. Mad Dog will be the deciding vote to break the tie. Jughead knows he shouldn’t view it so cavalierly, but Archie’s confidence assured him that even if Sweet Pea turns this moment into a circus, Betty will be okay. For all his promises to Archie that he won’t let anything happen to her, Jughead is also sure that Betty would wipe the floor with Sweet Pea in an interrogation room. Whether or not she’ll ever speak to Jughead again afterward is the real question plaguing him.

The thought makes his stomach turn as Mad Dog parks and locks his car. He knows he could take a more authoritarian approach and trump Sweet Pea’s insistence. But beyond the obvious risks, especially now that Pea’s suspicions have heightened, Jughead couldn’t ignore the twisting sensation in his gut:  _ That’s something FP would do.  _

Of course, he reasons, Betty isn’t paying him off under the table; the situation is far more delicate, more innocent than bribery. It’s not, at this point, a question of whether he’s willing to defend her. But reckless, feckless denial, authoritarianism, and bullying to do it felt… nauseating.  His father had refused to charge Clifford Blossom with drug trafficking with the same tactics.  _ Think of how much the Blossoms and Lodges are already breathing down our necks, boy. If we’re gonna do it right, we have to take our time.  _ These sounded like good answers, but not when they’d already acquired plenty of receipts. 

Here and now, Sweet Pea has invoked the misnomer of “probable cause,” and as a detective, is in his full authority to arrest Betty Cooper for involvement in the murder of Jason Blossom.

“Why couldn’t we do this on the phone, chief?” Mad Dog pleads, but Jughead senses Mad Dog making the same calculations that Archie did about the cigarette in his hand. “We got the evidence, there’s enough there for an arrest. I thought this was good to go.”

Two to one. If only Archie were a detective with any kind of deciding sway. Jughead only has one card to play, so he throws it out. “Betty Cooper is a fed.”

Mad Dog seems to decide that this explains the chain smoking. “Damn. So they’ll be up our ass? The FBI?”

Jughead doesn’t actually know; the last time the FBI came to Riverdale, they’d blown in like a summer storm, rapid and ruthless, even though they’d been following Hiram Lodge for years. 

“Probably,” he tries. “You remember how that went last time.” But those agents had things locked down: piles and piles of evidence, and enough suspicion about FP that Jughead’s testimony had been the nail in the coffin.

“But this isn’t a multi-million dollar extortion case. It’s the cold-case murder of a kid people have thought dead for a long time. High profile, sure. But they’ll probably just send someone down to work the case with us. And they’ve probably got enough questionable psych evals on Cooper to help support our line of thinking, right?”

Jughead clenches his teeth at the casualness with which Mad Dog insinuates that Betty is crazy. A man killing a woman is often watered down to ‘crime of passion'. A woman who kills a man is rare, terrifying, a monster.  _ Did you know she was the top of her class? That according to Archie, she bakes the best cookies in the world? That she’s the youngest agent ever assigned to the BAU? That her best smile is the one hardest to detect, because she's trying to ice you out, but she can’t hide it? _

Jughead notices a long blonde hair on his sweater sleeve. The same kind of hair found in a wig in Jason’s grave. Hair he combed his fingers through only hours ago. 

“Even if we buy into Pea’s whole motive narrative—and I’m not sure I do—what about means? Cooper might be a fed today, but this happened when she was seventeen. How did she find Jason, at least a month  _ after _ his disappearance? How did she manage to knock out a football player with half a foot and probably 75 pounds on her? How did she bury the body in the garden without anyone noticing? These are the questions the FBI will rail us with,” Jughead finishes his rant, ending somewhere that might cover for the edge in his voice.

_ These are the questions Betty is going to rip you apart with. _

Mad Dog just shrugs. “There’s more evidence, you know. The chloroform and all. And that’s where the interrogation comes in, right?” His tone verges on sarcasm and Jughead knows that if he keeps pushing, he’ll lose his feigned objectivity.

“That’s true,” he sighs, a wisp of a lie. “Listen, let’s go home. Reconvene in the morning. Actually, take the morning off. Sorry I made you come back down.” Really, this is to keep his slip about federal agent Betty under wraps. If Sweet Pea finds out _now_ that Betty is an agent, as he’s so foolishly blabbed to Mad Dog, or even worse, that Jughead has known her status all along, he could use to it get back at Jughead for not backing him. It sounds a little too vindictive for Pea, but given the heat of his own brotherly rage at Sweets right now, he can’t chance that it might be reciprocal.

Jughead will have to fill the shift. 

Fumbling in his pocket for keys, he knows sleep may not come easily, but the longer he’s awake, the more likely it is that he’ll say or do something to make his detectives wary of his motives.  

 

  

At the end of his long gravel driveway, Jughead realizes that he forgot to feed his dog. Hot Dog waits by his outdoor kennel, sulking. Jughead feels the same—dinner feels like ages ago. Whistling for Hot Dog to follow, he gets through the front door and stops to peel off his clothes that reek of smoke and put them straight into the washer that Fangs had saved from a Southside apartment demo and reinstalled in the cabin for him. 

Down to his underwear, Jughead runs the wash and pads over to Hot Dog’s bin of kibble. Usually he’ll save him something from dinner as a treat, but he’s got nothing, and thankfully Hot Dog doesn’t seem to care as he wolfs down his belated dinner. “Sorry, bud,” Jug murmurs. 

He knows he has food he could heat up, but the effort isn’t quite there, so instead he finds the ends of a loaf of bread and the bulk size peanut butter jar. Flopping onto the couch, he leans into a decades old routine—single slices of bread and peanut butter until his stomach feels placated enough to let him sleep. 

Thinking about tomorrow is a double edged sword. He needs a plan to protect Betty without raising suspicions, but the more concrete his thoughts are—sending her a warning text, sending her a completely innocent and sweet goodnight text to make it seem like he knows nothing at all—the more they backfire by producing even more evidence to jeopardize their jobs. 

_ Archie,  _ he thinks in the middle of his fourth slice of peanut butter bread. Archie is the only reason he doesn’t feel like his father right now, trying to steer the direction of his underlings without cause or explanation. Archie can, at the very least, wipe the messages from Betty’s phone. Jughead will delete his, too. The rest of the day, he’ll play sidekick to Sweet Pea. Let his detective do what he wants, but Jughead can curb things if they go south. And that, Jughead knows, there is no way to foresee. 

The practical line of thinking is, he knows, a crutch to lean on now that he’s out of nicotine. It’s the only thing keeping him from the real underlying terror that has nothing to do with whether Betty killed someone. Underneath everything, his real fear is losing the unblinking trust in her eyes when she said  _ partner.  _ His real fear is that even if she was the murderer, he’d still be eating peanut butter at midnight, knowing what he’s actually just starving to kiss her again. 

First twisting up the bread bag and returning it to the top of the fridge, out of Hot Dog’s reach, Jughead then goes to his bedroom, pulls on one of his old S shirts and slides into bed, clicking the lamp off in a hurry, as if he could so abruptly extinguish his thoughts. But even after everything, even after doubts and fears have torn his hopeful imaginations to shreds, in the pitch black of his room, he feels what was once his preferable state of peace as a deep emptiness. 

 

 

The next morning is frigid—hinting that April is not giving way peacefully to spring. They’re still due for the inevitable and ultimate snowfall that April never fails to punish them with, and the thought does nothing to improve Jughead’s mood. He spends the drive to work mentally preparing to act as a false endorsement of the arrest, a secret agent of Betty’s freedom.

But it’s not going to look that way when he cuffs her.

In the briefing room, Sweet Pea rehearses his delivery. “You should play Cooper, you’ve met her more than I have. You’re good at that stuff.”

Jughead ignores the request, knowing that if he opens his mouth, something snide will slide out about his personal knowledge of Betty seeming uninteresting to Pea up until now. Sweet Pea knows him too well—the more he speaks, the more suspicious he’ll get.

While he’d been fearful of revealing the extent of his knowledge the night before, in the light of day, Jughead doesn’t actually think Sweet Pea will hold any of his professional indiscretions against him. They’re family in all the ways that really matter. But if Pea knows, the cat will be so far out of the bag they’d have to hunt and kill it, leaving more evidence to cover up and still nowhere closer to solving the crime. 

Plus, if he’s going to have to endure this, he’d at least like to watch as Betty uses her training to Sweet Pea’s utter shock and humiliation.

Jughead drives the squad car to Archie’s. They do not speak. Pea mumbles under his breath, rehearsing. 

Of course, when they pull up, Betty comes out onto the porch, perhaps thinking it’s just him; Jughead’s stomach pangs with both panic and longing. He lets Sweet Pea take the lead as they approach.

“Did you know we were coming?” Pea lobs, and Betty’s brow furrows in confusion, struggling to read the situation. Jughead emphasizes his lack of eye contact and uncertain movements, and this reaches her like a beacon. 

At her lack of reply, Pea probes on. “Ms. Cooper, there have been emergent connections about an incident with Charles Clayton and yourself in connection with Jason’s murder.”

The force behind Betty’s tone chills Jughead. “Grasping is undignified. There is no connection between the incidents to my knowledge nor was I, in any way, involved in Jason’s murder.”

“We have identified evidence to the contrary, and I may remind you that you do not have the power to intervene in this investigation.” He’s showboating, just like he would in front of girls in high school about being on the varsity basketball team. 

But Betty shoots Jughead a pointed look for the first time, and he knows she’s wondering whether he’s ratted her out. Gotten her sidelined. The flicker of betrayal in her eyes feels like a knife in Jughead’s ribs.

“What evidence?” Her voice is softer, but no less secure in her innocence.

Sweet Pea pulls the bag out of his jacket, the one with the wig inside. Betty pales like she’s seen a ghost, a memory she’s worked hard to filter out (though just how many of  _ those _ she has, Jughead could never begin to imagine). 

“Can you tell me why we found this buried with Jason’s body?”

Betty seems to glitch, but Jughead thinks—hopes, prays—that it’s out of the same unspeakable shock he’d felt after receiving the same news. 

Sweet Pea begins speaking calmly, believing that he’s clinched the win. He jerks his head at Jughead. Finding the metal cuff in his pocket, Jughead braces for the next part. He’d asked Sweet Pea to let him do this, mostly because the thought of anyone holding her arms back, shoving her into a squad car makes him taste blood.

While Sweet Pea reads the Mirandas, Betty’s jaw clenches, but her eyes are resolute. Jughead recognizes her anger, the guarded layers she’s shed and rebuilt around him already several times. There isn’t a trace of fear about what’s happening, and her confidence gives him the courage to meet her eyes, the plea  _ please don’t hate me for this _ pulling his brows taught.  _ I already hate myself _ . 

 

She nods imperceptibly, though exactly what she is affirming, he’s not sure. His hand lingers for half a second on her wrist when he snaps the cuffs on, letting her arms hang more comfortably in front of her body. He’s not worried that she’ll try any of the self-defense moves that she undoubtedly could kill him with. 

 

Then Veronica opens the door behind them, holding a thick envelope, just as Sweet Pea recites  _ if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you.  _

 

“Like hell they well. Betty’s got an attorney right here.” Veronica holds out a certificate from the New York Bar Association. 

 

Jughead feels confused, but it’s the look on Archie’s face, visible through the crack in the door that tells him  _ no one  _ knew about this. Judging by the envelope in Veronica’s hands, perhaps not even herself until moments ago. 

 

Sweet Pea starts questioning Veronica immediately, and Jughead sees his window. With a hand gently on Betty’s upper arm, he directs her towards the squad car. Only because he can still hear Veronica and Sweet Pea’s voices slightly raised at each other, Jughead murmurs, too nervous and hoarse for a whisper, “I tried everything, Betty, my hands were tied—”

 

“Not as tied as mine.” Her tone is deadpan, but not vicious, and Jughead counts it as some miniscule victory that she may not feel completely, utterly betrayed.

 

Opening the door to the back of the squad car, Jughead pivots to check on their respective sidekicks, finding that Veronica is pointing a very firm index at Sweet Pea, who scribbles something down. Maybe documenting where he’s lost all sense of dignity. 

 

Guiding Betty into the backseat, an unnecessary gesture, but one that allows him to keep his hand on her shoulder for a few more seconds. She’s still unnervingly silent, and Jughead finds himself bubbling up to fill the space or to ease the churning nausea he’s been experiencing for the last twelve hours. 

 

“I promise, I’m going to do everything I can to protect you and make this go away. I’m sorry you  _ ever _ had to deal with this, much less having it dredged up over a bullshit accusation. Clearly, you’re being framed and—”

 

Betty flutters shut her eyes and closes her hand over his. “He’s coming.”

 

Jughead jerks out of the backseat and closes the door, getting into the driver’s side as quickly as possible. 

 

“It’s not bullshit, you know.”

 

Jughead’s blood runs cold; he resists a shiver. Betty continues, softly. “These accusations happen all the time. Find the cold, vindictive bitch that the jury will have doubts about. It doesn’t matter if I was a seventeen year old girl. So, Jughead,” she over-enunciates his name, like an insult, “It’s not bullshit. It’s  _ wrong _ , but if we aren’t careful—”

 

She stops abruptly when Sweet Pea opens the passenger door. 

 

“We’ve got to get Veronica Andrews thrown off this. She can’t possibly be allowed to act as the attorney when she’s got ties to the case.” Jughead knows Sweet Pea is grumbling because Veronica is already making him regret the extremity and haste of the arrest; somehow he resists the  _ I told you so. _

 

“Well,  _ she’s _ not being charged for a crime,” Betty offers, and Jughead has to press his lips together and bite his tongue to keep from laughing. 

 

“No one asked you, ponytail.”

 

But Betty just closes her eyes again, and Jughead can still feel the spot on his palm she pressed with her thumb. 

 

* * *

 

Veronica’s brain swirls with the combination of adrenaline and serotonin, the shock, fear, and delight.  _ The State of New York grants Veronica Cecelia Lodge Andrews license to practice law, based on her education, admittance by the Bar, and evaluation of personal character. _

 

Her first thought, looking down at her leggings and old Columbia sweatshirt is  _ I need to change clothes.  _ It’s only the Riverdale sheriff’s station, but she wants,  _ needs _ this town to know that Veronica Lodge Andrews has not settled quietly into the life of a homemaker or a receptionist, content to answer calls and mail violation notices.  

 

Yet marching up the stairs to her closet, the blue lights on the street flashing as Jughead drives away, the other half of her brain is swirling with panic. Of course the allegations are bullshit. She was there—Veronica takes more than half credit for the night with Chuck in the hot tub. It’s not her proudest moment, but getting Clayton kicked off the football team was an early taste of justice that fueled her to this very moment, able to defend Betty from whatever set-up this was and whatever circus would unfold. 

 

A woman with vindiction was the most terrifying thing the media could sink their teeth into, despite the wide world of white men who daily rape, beat, shoot, murder, whose families ask for privacy and respect. Who receive it. Betty doesn’t have any family to plea for her, and Veronica will gladly throw herself into the fight. 

 

But the buzz in Veronica’s brain goes silent when she opens the bedroom door. The Louis Vuitton is open on the floor where she left it, but Achie is slumped on the floor, back against the foot of the bed, holding the pregnancy test in his hand like it’s a math quiz with an F. 

 

A weight drops into the pit of her stomach, and she’s frozen in the doorway.

 

Veronica knows her lines, the stage directions. She should drop to her knees next to Archie, cradle his face.  _ I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It’s too soon to take the test. There’s been so much going on. I just wanted to wait. Give us one less thing to worry about.  _ He would nod, numbly, perhaps croak out a  _ why didn’t you tell me  _ despite the fact that she would have already answered the question. She would repeat herself, in slight variations, until the apology took hold. Until she smiles a soft smile and whispers  _ I love you  _ into his hairline. Archie would return it of course, maybe even hoist her onto the bed. Maybe they’d peel their clothes off and fuck with a primal, reproductive hunger. 

 

But Veronica doesn’t pick up the script. She stays in the doorway, eyes closed, wanting to fast forward to afterward. Or rewind twenty minutes and remember to zip her purse up and tuck it back onto the shelf. 

 

“When were you going to tell me, Veronica?” Archie’s use of her full name bites, like the sting of acid in a cut. He’s trying to pull her over, summoning her to soothe him. As if the whole scenario is more difficult for him than her.

 

“If the screen said pregnant,” she murmurs. 

 

_ “If?”  _

 

Veronica closes her eyes. She needs to change. She needs to go to Betty. “Archie, I have to go to the station. Betty has been  _ arrested.” _

 

Archie stands and comes to her, test thrown on the bed. “Veronica. Why didn’t you tell me that you could be  _ pregnant?” _

 

She hardly even feels the fuse light before she bursts. “Because I might not be! Because we didn’t plan to get wasted on St. Patrick’s Day and go two rounds without a condom! Because Betty showed up and you found a fucking dead body! Because we’re both trying to figure out what makes us happy and I’m not sure I’m ready to be a mother!”

 

She pushes past him, determined to change into a suit and heels before Betty ends up in an interrogation room stare-down without her lawyer present.

 

“Ronnie.” It’s a whine, and Veronica pushes down the bile of frustration rising from her gut. It is wrong, of course, to want to punish Archie’s ignorance, but she hates his indignant righteousness about the whole situation.

 

Green blazer. Striped cream blouse. Black slacks. Were the green heels too much?  _ You’re a fucking attorney. Wear the damn shoes.  _ She drapes the clothes over her arm and scoops up the shoes. Turning back to Archie, she heaves a sigh.

 

“Archie, I didn’t tell you yet, because no matter what the test says, no matter how many tears of joy we cry, no matter how many fcuking ultrasounds you hold my hand through, a baby in our lives, especially an  _ unplanned  _ baby means something different for me than it does for you.”

 

Archie opens his mouth to respond, but the furrow in his brow tells her that she won’t love his answer.

 

“I needed time. I still need time. Because if I’m pregnant, I’m going to cry those tears of joy, Arch.” As if summoned, her eyes spill over, her voice cracking. “I’m going to be a mom. And I’m not going to look back. But I’m also going to have to reckon with how that’s going to fit with everything else.”

 

“But you don’t have to deal with that alone, babe.” 

 

She lets Archie take her free hand and squeeze, but she just shrugs in response. Of course he would shoulder it. Of course he would hold her hair back for the nauseous first trimester. Make late night trips to the grocery store for grapefruit or bacon or ice cream. Sign them up for birth classes. Rub her feet. Kiss her belly. 

 

But he’d never get looks from strangers for leaving work late on a school night. For being the last parent at pick-up because a client meeting ran long. For not packing their lunch every day. For not having grandparents around for last minute childcare. For Archie “spending less time with the guys.” 

 

“I have to go, Arch,” she pleads. 

 

He nods, his expression defiantly stoic. “I’ll meet you there.”

  
  
  
  


Screeching to a halt outside the sheriff’s station, Veronica tries to screw her head back together as she gathers up her bag, reapplies her lipstick, and practices a searing look in her rearview mirror. Of course, Betty will be in some kind of state and hiding it under steely eyes and a cool denial, but of course, Veronica knows better.

 

The night of the hot tub, with Chuck, with the stilettos and the muscle relaxants and what could easily have been assault charges, Veronica most remembers the look on Betty’s face before and after she tugged Betty away from the tub. The ferocity and pain as Betty jabbed her heel into Chuck’s shoulder. The shock and disorientation when Betty staggered backwards, realizing what Veronica had saved her from.

 

_ These idiots are all going to pay for this.  _ Jughead especially, she thinks, her heels clipping across the asphalt. He’d pulled away too quickly for her to dig her verbal claws into him; she had to settle for the blundering detective, Sweet Pea, who Veronica had never had a real reason to dislike other than a disbelief in his competency and playful but persistent professional jabs at her husband. That is—she can’t say she’s  _ surprised _ that he’s behind all this. 

 

As she enters the station, Ethel points down the hallway, offering a tight smile that Veronica tries to return, but it’s hazy through the steam of her building rage.

 

Betty sits, shoulders slumped and hands cuffed, in a line of plastic blue chairs alongside the booking room. Her hands are stained with ink, and when she hears Veronica’s footsteps, Veronica detects a glistening tear dripping down her face.  _ These bastards are going to pay,  _ she thinks, grinding her teeth, then softening as she takes the chair next to Betty and pulls her into a hug. 

 

“How are you?”

 

Betty wipes the solidarity tear streak like she doesn’t know where it came from. “I don’t really know,” she says. “I know, obviously, nothing about the wig. But I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just up to whether they believe me.”

 

Veronica seethes under the breath, “I’m going to kick Jughead’s fucking teeth in.”

 

Betty shakes her head abruptly, whispering, “No,  _ no,  _ V we have to pretend that he barely knows me.”

 

“Why? If anything, we should be using that to get them to drop this bullshit. You don’t owe him protection, Betty.”

 

Betty looks over her shoulder. “That’s the thing, V. I think he’s trying to protect  _ me _ .”

 

“Well, he’s doing a fucking excellent job.” Her voice carries across the room and Betty puts her face into her hands.

 

Talking through her fingers, Betty murmurs, “I’m just saying, I don’t think anyone hates Jug for this more than himself.”

 

Veronica looks down at her shoes, the vintage green Prada heels that she’d driven to Vermont for when one of her frequented consignment stores asked her if she was interested in a splurge. She’d put them on the credit card, paid them off slowly. She never told Archie how much they’d cost—not that it was a lie. Veronica managed their money. And she’s a  _ lawyer _ , not just a wife or a friend, and right now, she needs to justify her three-hundred dollar shoes and get Betty the hell out of jail.

 

“You know what? That’s not relevant, is it? What they need to know is exactly what happened with Chuck and exactly what we knew about Jason. We’re going to play their game and win, okay?” Veronica knows her voice borders on frantic, but it seems to soothe Betty nonetheless.

 

The click of a door down the hall brings their heads up in unison to find Jughead and Sweet Pea emerge from the Sheriff’s office. Veronica can read a hint of resignation in the slump of Jughead’s posture and silently wills him to buck up and pretend a bit better. He looks like he hasn’t slept, like he’s sweating off a fever. 

 

“I need a room to conference with my client,” she says. 

 

Sweet Pea sneers. “You can conference with me in the interrogation room, ladies.”

 

It is all Veronica can do not to throttle his neck. 

 

* * *

 

In the back of the squad car, the front seat mostly obscured by metal-enforced plexiglass, Betty lets her eyes fall closed, praying to go back in time. At first, she thinks, to be less taken aback at the detective, more able to diffuse the situation before the arrest. Then, perhaps, to the night before, to call Jug afterwards.

 

But really, she wants to be back in their moment, holding onto something real while every other certainty blurs. 

 

How firm and determined he’d been, how focused. Eyebrows furrowed, speaking a language of only her name, over and over. How immediately she’d wondered what it would sound like if moaned, if whispered and pleaded like a prayer. 

 

She had to pull back at first because it was too much for one kiss, one first kiss, to be so intense. It was supposed to be sloppy, awkward, worth a little laughter—not like the end and beginning of kissing as she knew it. 

 

And really, the first brief moment their lips met could have been enough, but Betty had opened her eyes when she pulled away and seen his exhale cascade through his whole body and known that he felt it to. 

 

The end and the beginning. 

 

  
  


Being arrested is something her colleagues used to joke about—what advice would you give if you found yourself on the other side of the interrogation table? There were enough agents who were bribed, turned, and caught; her team always assumed that if they had to face off with the Bureau, you would want to be as emotionless, as unreadable as possible. 

 

It was never assumed that you would be arrested by an insecure small town cop and his boss—a man your heart skips beats over. A man you confessed your feelings for mere hours ago. Who made you feel vulnerable in a way you’ve never allowed, and yet because of this, safe in a way you’ve never experienced.

 

Even after he’s cuffed you (somehow, tenderly) and (gently) escorted you into the back of a squad car and vowed  _ I will do whatever I can to protect you. _

 

Betty does not need protection; she’s advanced in multiple martial arts. She carries a gun and knows how to use it. She’s taken care of herself, protected herself from a long series of threats: her mother’s judgement and unpredictable rage, her sister’s aimless rebellion, her father’s psychopathic violence, the targeted deaths of people she loves. This is not to mention reliving those days every time she walks into an interrogation room. Usually, however, she’s the one with the power. Still, even now, she knows she can walk into the interrogation and turn the tables back on Sweet Pea. 

 

She may not know what happened to make even more of her past traumas resurface, quite literally, in the form of a cabaret wig (that she’d stolen from an old Halloween costume of Polly’s to begin with). There is no logical connection, and while this makes her case more difficult, it’s also the only thing that might help her walk out unscathed.

 

So although Betty doesn’t need protection, the ferocity of Veronica’s presence gives Betty added strength. The thought of Archie wearing track in the carpet with his pacing in the lobby reminds her that loyalty is a version of protection. 

 

Even though she doesn’t need protection, she chances a look at Jug and decides against all logic, to nod just slightly, granting him permission to carry out whatever plans he’s been engineering.

 

Something about it strikes a deep chord; he’s not backing her because they’re both members of an elite federal investigation team, or because they’re high school best friends. Jug has no obligation to her, even though she knows—and in moments still tastes—what his mouth feels like on hers. 

 

But he says he will protect her. Betty finds that she wants him to.   

  
  
  


 

The women sit on one side of the table, facing the two way mirror. Betty can’t help the way her gaze falls back in that direction every few seconds, knowing Jug is behind it.   
  


Sweet Pea sighs, and Betty imagines he might be feigning boredom, though she can’t imagine how that’s going to work as a tactic. Maybe he truly does think this is a waste of his time.  _ Gotta make the bitch confess.  _ She knows what men say in strategy meetings, safe behind closed doors. There are many nut-busting moves she’s perfected in judo and fantasized about using in those moments.

 

This is the spark that lights this fire in her chest, glancing to Veronica with a disdain that says,  _ he’s just another high school jock we’re uniting to take down.  _ In this town, most of them don’t seem to grow up.

 

The detective flips open the case file with a one-handed swish, a move he’s practiced, no doubt, during the excessive hours he sits at a desk, having wet dreams about the day he gets to arrest his first murder suspect.

 

“Tell me about Charles Clayton. And I want to hear it from Betty, so don’t even try,” He finger waggles at Veronica, adding a splash of lighter fuel to Betty’s rage.

 

Licking her front teeth, she bites. “I know we went to different high schools, detective, but you seem like the athletic type.” When he stares blankly at the statement, Betty waves him on. She’s being rhetorical, but it will be easier if he participates. 

 

“Um, sure. Yes, I played basketball. Get to the point.”

 

Betty squashes a grin. If he couldn’t resist naming his sport of choice, she’s already won the war.

 

“I could tell,” she giggles a little for show—she can picture Jug’s smirk behind the mirror. “I can also tell that you were… upstanding. You know, some of the jocks—and it doesn’t matter where you go to school. It’s a universal truth that some guys are just a little  _ bad.  _ They don’t care if they hurt girls, or if they use them. But I can tell you weren’t one of those, were you?”

 

Sweet Pea looks very uncomfortable, but he doesn’t know how to cut through her bullshit. He (falsely) assumes that as long as she’s talking, he’s doing his job. She plows on.

 

“No, see, you were not a Chuck Clayton. You didn’t prey on fourteen year olds, or trade ‘favors of experience’ for research papers on the revolutions of Europe. You wouldn’t have played along, even when the other guys on the team did. But then again… boys will be boys, right detective?”

 

“Objection!” he pouts.

 

“That’s my line, detective. My client has been read her rights. She can say what she would like,” Veronica sneers.

 

“Get to the point, Cooper,” Jughead’s voice comes over the intercom like the slap of a ruler across the knuckles, but Betty knows he’s relishing the moment. Deep down, she likes hearing his voice in such a  demanding tone. She stifles a shiver. 

 

“Chuck started to play both Veronica and I in the same week. He knew how to feed girls what they wanted to hear. Veronica was new to Riverdale, so he played up how it would look to be on the football captain’s arm. With me—” her breath nitches involuntarily, but she huffs through it. Hopefully, only Veronica notices. “It was a few weeks after my sister, Polly, disappeared. I was feeling vulnerable and lonely, and Chuck started to show up after my classes or practice, asking if I was okay. If I needed a ride to school, or home from cheerleading. He told me how much he thought about what could have happened to Polly, not just Jason. I fell for it, even though he’d never been kind to me before.” 

 

“So when you found out it was all a game, you snapped,” Sweet Pea feeds.

 

Betty bristles, unable to temper her response to all of the detective’s dog-whistling to  _ female insanity. _ “Let’s be clear. If we’re going to talk about mental stability, let’s first acknowledge that Chuck Clayton was, pathologically, not a healthy young man. His ability to use people…”

 

Veronica flits a darting look, a warning. It was not time to give her psychological assessment of Chuck. The man across from them had neither the training to understand her nor the knowledge of her own credentials. Betty stops, nodding for Veronica to step in. She takes a break to breathe, focusing on the inhale and exhale instead of the building temptation to break Sweet Pea’s nose with a split-second jab. 

 

Jones is taking his damn time with his purported plan.

 

“A few days into his offense, Chuck propositioned me about a…  _ ménage à trois _ _.  _ Unsurprisingly, this was about potential point totals in the sick little game of varsity football players. Turns out the total per girl tripled if you could get them… together.” Veronica swallows with disgust.

 

Sweet Pea takes the moment to push them. “So, the muscle relaxant you used? Where did that come from?”

 

Betty uses the question to steadily bring herself back in, quirking an eyebrow at Veronica. “Hiram?”

 

“Hermione, actually. She probably used them on Hiram, though,” Veronica scoffs.

 

“Why the… theatrics?”

 

Betty pauses, unsure, for the first time, how to proceed. They were edging into territory that once plunged Betty into a blackout rage; that trigger hadn’t lost all sensitivity. He wants her to lose control, so she has to stay detached, or maybe even play up the regret. 

 

“We had found the notebook with all the point totals. Veronica and I stormed into the boys locker room. We turned the hard copy to the principal, but Chuck was willing to go down fighting, so… we needed leverage.”  _ Hammer home the point about justice for  _ all  _ the girls in that notebook. _

 

Sweet Pea needles. “Sorry, I’m just not buying that this wasn’t personal. You weren’t angry? You didn’t think he needed a little extra… punishment?”

 

_ How novel. The man doesn’t believe that two teen girls could have acted out of calculated design instead of hot-headed rage.  _

 

 “Especially after all those heart to hearts about your sister, seeing her name—”

 

“It wasn’t about Polly,” Betty snaps. Veronica flashes another warning look. 

 

“Then why, in the footage of you nearly drowning Charles Clayton in a hot tub, did you  _ refer to yourself _ as Polly? Why did you call Charles Clayton by Jason’s name?”

 

Betty flutters her eyes closed, mentally grappling for the slippery rope of control once more. “There is a medical term called dissociation. It’s—”

 

“I know what fucking dissociating is, Cooper. I want to know  _ did it happen again with you and Jason Blossom?” _

 

Veronica taps her green heel with a punctuating stomp. “You have no evidence to assume such a thing. I want my client discharged. This is absurd.”

 

“V…” Betty says, and then silently with her eyes,  _ I’ve got this _ . 

 

And she does, she reminds herself. Not only because the detective across from her is impulsive and sloppy, but because if she can turn his logic out, the sheriff will step in. At least, she hopes.

 

Sweet Pea drags it out. “Blossom was chemically sedated before burial. We found chloroform in the Cooper house basement.”

 

“You’ll find in my father’s casefiles that he confessed to making that solution to sedate and murder Midge Klump, many months after Jason’s date of death. Do you have proof that Jason was chemically sedated with chloroform?” 

 

Sweet Pea clears his throat, pretending she didn’t respond but clearly shaken. “The wig. How do you account for the wig?”

 

Betty scrunches her eyebrows into the most comically exaggerated expression of confusion she can muster. “Yeah, I’m stuck on that one too, champ. You see, I hid that wig deep in my bedroom closet. I assumed it was thrown out with a whole lot of other shit when you know, my dad killed my mom and I shipped off for intensive post-traumatic stress treatment. But then again, a lot of stuff just sat there for years while my house became the proverbial haunted house of Riverdale, frequented by crackheads and ghost hunters. Or, more likely, both.”

 

Sweet Pea’s lips gape and close over and over, fumbling over half spoken words. She takes the reins. “I mean, we could  _ try  _ to narrow down the list of who knew about the wig and who would try to frame me. I’m betting that whoever they are  _ actually  _ killed Jason.”

 

The door to the interrogation room opens to Jughead, who takes a seat next to Sweet Pea. His feverish demeanor of the day has mellowed to his usual calm, cool, and collected self. 

 

“And we narrow  _ that  _ list down by who knew about the wig, Miss Cooper.”

 

Fighting even her usual, though now blatantly obvious gestures for holding back in front of him (chewing her lip, smothering a smile, a sigh), Betty presses back, “The video of me circulated… everywhere. Fortunately, it’s been eliminated from all corners of the internet  _ now,  _ but at the time… anyone could have seen it. And not just in Riverdale. It went around Greendale High, Centreville… the whole county, probably.”

 

Jughead nods, pondering, but Betty knows it’s for show. She knows he’s thought through this part as much as she has. “In that case, your actions and costume use against Charles Clayton were not only public knowledge, but your motives as well. Assuming, of course, that knowledge of a missing girl named Polly Cooper was also definitive public knowledge in the county.”

 

It feels insane the be biting back a grin at the moment, but she admires him too much. 

 

“They would have had access to my house, so that may narrow things down.”

 

Jughead shakes his head. “Yes and no. Like you said, the wig could have been planted at the burial or later. We would have to run some tests. Your family home has certainly been vulnerable in the past decade.”

 

Now just hamming it up for Sweet Pea’s humiliation, she exclaims, “You could do that? Test the date on the wig burial?”

 

The detective blanches, realizing just how far out of his grasp things have gotten. “That’s alright, Miss Cooper. The professionals will take it from here.”

 

Jughead deadpans, “Indeed. Given our lack of sufficient evidence, you will run the discharge paperwork for Miss Cooper immediately while I set a date to follow up with her  _ witness testimony.  _ Then, I will be going home to get some fucking sleep while  _ you  _ follow the documentation protocol.”

 

He stands, leaving the room with a curt, professional nod at Betty and Veronica. 

 

Smiling serenely, Betty asks for the detective to uncuff her. As they fumble through the discharge process back in the lobby, Sweet Pea shoves her personal effects across a counter. “Did you go into Witness Protection or something?” he grumbles, and Betty sighs with pleasure at her second failed background check. “I thought  _ Betty _ sounded kind of fake. You’re Elizabeth in all the papers.”

 

Fishing through her poorly searched effects, Betty retrieves the familiar leather badge and flashes the FBI logo back across the counter. “It’s Agent Cooper to you, detective.”

  
  
  


Archie meets them in the lobby, the picture of distress. Pouncing like his old dog Vegas, he engulfs Betty in a hug. “Charges dropped, oh my god, Jughead just told me. Thank  _ god.”  _

 

Betty can’t tell how long Archie has known about the arrest. He’s not a great actor, but that may be the reason she didn’t see him this morning; he’d slept in, but there were signs of fatigue under his eyes.

 

Grateful, for once, that Riverdale no longer has a newspaper, there are no cameras or reporters waiting outside. Perhaps the sheriff’s department will keep their blunder hushed, smoothing over the bump when the news channels descend for the inevitable interviews and releases. The coming days, Betty knows from working enough murder cases, will be the most intense. There is enough evidence to put the information out, in measured amounts, to the public. There will be more crackpot theories brought forth from the general population to wade through, but she has a feeling that Jug will sic Sweet Pea on the worst of it. 

 

Hell, she has the leverage to terrorize the detective into it herself.

 

Archie suggests they get some food and Betty’s stomach agrees, amazed by the time vortex she’s been swallowed in, thinking of her abandoned coffee cup on the Lodge’s porch and the digital clock in Archie’s truck reading 5:09 PM.  

 

“The Bulldog okay with you, Betty?” Betty nods, clambering into the backseat. 

 

“Oh, um, I came separately. In the madness. But I’m actually gonna just head home and get some of this Bar Association stuff taken care of.” Veronica’s voice is clipped, falsely casual. Archie swallows like he’s holding in a retort, his brow furrowing with concern, even anger. Betty can’t imagine what they’ve fought about, but it’s clear that Archie had been hoping they would move on. For whatever reason, Veronica can’t yet. 

 

“Congratulations, V. In all the hubbub, I never got to say that. I’m proud of you.” Betty slides back out of the car to offer her friend an embrace.

 

“You were amazing in there, B. You hardly needed me,” Veronica murmurs. 

 

Betty looks Veronica square in the eyes. “That’s never been true.”

 

Veronica’s chin wobbles a little. “You two should go grab some food. I’ll see you later.”

 

The first half of the drive to the Bulldog with Archie is silent.  Betty senses that the lack of resolution between her friends means that Archie’s not keen to talk about it.  Besides, she has her own line of questioning. She starts off casual; they haven’t spent much time alone, especially without the case between them, so she asks about the best menu items at the Bulldog; unsurprisingly, Archie has a lot of opinions about which menu items are worthwhile. In the end, they end up with their usuals: a cheeseburger and chocolate malt for Archie; grilled cheese and a strawberry milkshake for her.  

 

Archie asks very Archie-genre questions about the FBI: Have you ever shot anyone? Can you do any stunts? Caught anyone I would have heard of?

 

Betty humors him with some of her most blockbuster moments; when she interrupted the eighth kill by a man in Alaska, or when they tracked another serial murderer on the run in the Grand Canyon. 

 

He’s gaping at this particular tale when Betty turns the questions back on him. “How was  _ your _ first experience negotiating last night?”

 

Archie pauses mid-bite, jaw locked in picture perfect  _ gotcha  _ frame. “How did you know?”

 

Betty shrugged and sneaks a half-smile. “You were extra tired this morning. My phone was off the charger, which I thought was a mistake, but on our way here I realized that you must have deleted Jug’s contact and call history from my phone while I slept. He must have called you and asked you to try to talk Sweet Pea. Be my character witness.”

 

Archie shakes his head in amusement and disbelief. “You were always good at guessing movie twists.”

 

Betty wants to correct him, to remind him that her training is a little more specific and technical than that, but Archie’s face settles on his serious face, the expression that says  _ my dad can’t pay his medical bills _ or  _ Veronica is angry about something I don’t understand. _

 

“Jug… he didn’t want to arrest you, Betty. He almost lost it at Sweet Pea last night, but he couldn’t. I know it looks like he was just protecting himself but he was really doing it to keep  _ your _ cover. He basically smoked himself sick about it. I know you’re probably pissed off and I’m not saying that you don’t have a reason, but… maybe just talk to him.”

 

Betty can’t help but hear Archie projecting a plea for his own forgiveness from Veronica woven into his speech. Though lacking in eloquence, Archie always redoubled in sincerity, and she remembers to thank him.

 

“It means a lot to me that you would stand up to your colleague for me, Arch.”

 

Archie reaches across the table to squeeze Betty’s arm. “I know it’s been a long time, but I will always be on your side, Betty.”

  
  
  
  


They pull into the Andrews driveway when Betty sees the light on in her childhood bedroom window. Logically, she knows that one of Fang’s guys probably just forgot to turn off a work lamp, but she’s already fishing in her bag for her pistol. 

 

Besides, she should give Archie and Veronica some space. “I told Fangs I would okay some of the renovation work for tomorrow. Just gonna check on some stuff next door.”

 

Strangely, she thinks, unlocking the front door, the most terrifying scenario seems the easiest to handle; Betty has been trained to handle intruders. It’s the least harmful, the one she shamefully hopes for, that she doesn’t know how to manage.

 

There is a definitive noise coming from upstairs, in her room. She hasn’t been inside since the first night, and she’s not sure if she’ll stomach the nightmarish shrine the second time either, but she tiptoes up the stairs anyway. At the top of the stairs she relaxes her posture, recognizing the sharp huffs of Jughead’s exhale.

 

He’s on a ladder, scraping the plastered messages from the wall with a scraper and very well toned forearms. By the looks of it, he’s been at it for hours: layers of pink paint chips and shreds of paper coat the floor perimeter. Jug has sweat his way out of his uniform overshirt; the white tank top he’s wearing seems like cruel and unusual punishment given the precarious state of their relationship, the redrawn lines.

 

“Hey,” she clears her throat.

 

Jughead startles just a fraction. “Hey.” 

 

He can’t be surprised to see her; it’s her house and there’s no logical reason for him to be here except to see her, away from the pretense.  

 

Betty knows that she’s neither irate nor ready to leap into his arms, no matter how prepared they may look to catch her. While she can’t seem to get ahold of her usual confidence or self-awareness around him anymore, she feels tempted by the safety of anger, the shield to all the vulnerability she’s shown and cannot take back.                                        

 

“You’ve got a department full of dicks,” she says, statement of fact.

 

Jughead looks pained, twirling the scraper in his hand. “Sweets fucked up but he’s… he did what he thought was right. He doesn’t know you.” He shakes his head, turning back to the wall, seeming to immediately regret the defensive response.  _ He doesn’t know you,  _ she thinks,  _ but you do.  _

 

“I meant it more literally than that. No women in the police department?” She doesn’t want to get into the personal histories of an asshat who called her ‘ponytail.’ 

 

“A lot of people left after the big town blow up.” Betty can sense something hesitant in his tone.

 

“A girlfriend?”

 

Jughead winces, wedging the scraper harshly against the wall and peeling off a long trail of adhesive and paper. His voice catches on a raw edge. “Nobody worth risking myself for.”

 

Betty’s surface level instinct is to tease.  _ Oh  _ you  _ were risking yourself in there? You arresting me was a regular walk in the park on my end!  _ But after longing, all day, for confirmation that he was, in fact, in some fit of agony, the barbs of her anger feel dull and exhausted. Instead, Betty’s stuck on the small ways he’d found to touch her, the subtle smirk of victory when she’d bested his detective. The glimmer in his eye as they rounded into the comfortable territory of swapping theories and identifying gaps.

 

And nothing quells her own anger quite like the way he’s attacking the monument of misconceptions about her. She understands it, she thinks—there is no arena for him to call off the press, no platform for him to shout from, but she hears him, still. Betty hears her own heart beat so loudly that she wonders if it’s synchronized with Jug’s, if she can hear them both.  

 

She speaks her next thought aloud. “How did you get in? The front door was locked.”

 

Jug climbs down from the ladder and stands, awkwardly holding the scraper in one hand and steadying himself on the ladder with the other. “I was feeling pretty restless and I wanted to clear the air with you. I couldn’t really hang around the Lodges, but I saw this ladder propped against the house so I climbed through the window… this sounds insane.”

 

Betty clenches her jaw to resist the heart melting thought of him climbing through her teenage bedroom window. Bumbling on, Jughead keeps twirling the scraper. “Then I saw all this.” He looks at the debris on the ground, sickened. “And I just kind of lost it. It was like, this physical reminder that everyone looks at you and has this mythic construction of who you are. Broken, damaged, robotic, angelic, heroic, whatever—I did too, before I met you. I never came up here and participated in  _ this,  _ but I don’t know if I’m really any different than the people who did.”

 

He’s close enough to reach, so she does—her hand covers his knuckles, clenched around the tool. She wants to tell him that it’s not true. That when he had the opportunity, he wiped the assumptions from his vision and  _ seen _ her. That she trusted him from the very first day because she saw him disarm his judgements slowly but surely. 

 

But now, the tone has shifted, the power differential weighing, refusing to be ignored. Betty might be a federal agent, but she’s on leave. She’s not assigned to this case. She’s not a consult. Even after discharge, even after all her posturing at Sweet Pea, she’s a suspect. 

Taking her hand back, Jug meets her eyes for the first time. 

 

“Did it make you wonder? What I did to Chuck Clayton? I mean, you’ve seen it. I can act a tough game, but I’m pretty fucked up. I  _ am _ broken and damaged.” She chokes on the last sentence, blinking away tears. 

 

This time, it’s Jug who reaches for her, a hand on her shoulder, sliding to the juncture of her neck. “No, Betty. What you did back then was… it was foolish, maybe. But it reminded me that you protect people. You always have, even when you’re the one who bears the burden.”

 

Betty finds herself leaning into his touch, craving a complete collapse into his arms. But his words trigger the nagging thought that’s been prickling in the base of her skull ever since Jug posed the question in the interrogation room of who might have planted that wig.

 

The person she’s lost it all for, or because of—it’s not always clear.  

 

“Jug?” Her voice is hoarse, exhausted, but saying his name feels soft on her lips.

 

He doesn’t move his hand except to graze her neck softly with his thumb; she knows he won’t until she steps away, or if she asks for him to let go.

 

“We need to pay a visit to my dad.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, thank you thank you for reading, and I am always greedy to know your thoughts <3

**Author's Note:**

> The 'accidentally finding a skeleton in the backyard' was inspired from The Witch Elm by Tana French


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